Deadline is exclusively reporting that Warner Bros. are looking to team up with director Michael Mann once again to develop a film adaptation of his novel to his crime classic Heat, with insiders also claiming that Mann has had discussions with Adam Driver to play young Neil McCauley in the film.

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Released in 1995 and set in the heart of Los Angeles, California, where we follow a group of armed thieves led by Neil McCauley, hitting targets such as major banks to armoured cars. When one of their operations doesn’t go as smoothly as McCauley would like, it places them on the radar of LAPD’s Lieutenant Vincent Hanna, who leads the investigation of the incident.

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Heat 2, published in August last year and written by Mann and Meg Gardiner, jumps between two time periods, one following Chris Shiherlis as he tries to evade the LAPD and Detective Vincent Hanna following the events of the original film, and the other taking us back to Chicago in 1998 when Chris Shiherlis works with Neil McCauley and their high-line crew taking scores on the West Coast, U,S/Mexico border, and now Chicago. In this same timeline, Hanna is a rising star in the Chicago police department chasing an ultraviolent gang of home invaders. The fallout from McCauley’s scores and Hanna’s pursuit cause unexpected repercussions in a parallel narrative.

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Warner Bros. is in negotiations to fund the develop of the project, with insiders stating that if the project moves forward, New Regency (who co-financed the original film) would be given an opportunity to co-finance production. Over the last few months, there has been lots of casting rumours in relation to Heat 2, from Al Pacino reprising the role of Vincent Hanna, to Austin Butler portraying a young Chris Shiherlis, to recent rumour of Ana de Armas being cast as Neil McCauley’s love interest in the 1988 timeline. However, insiders state that Driver is the only actor to commit to a role on the project as young Neil McCauley (portrayed by Robert De Niro in the original film), as he and Michael Mann discussed the idea during production on Ferrari.