5 Other Michael Mann Prequel Novels We'd Like to Read After 'Heat'

Although the ending of Michael Mann’s beloved 1995 thriller, Heat, pretty much ruled out a sequel reuniting Robert De Niro’s ace crook, Neil McCauley, and Al Pacino’s emotive cop, Vincent Hanna, the famously intense director has come up with a way of continuing their story. Mann is in the process of launching the publishing imprint Michael Mann Books, which will develop novels destined for bookshelves and, possibly, movie screens.

Among the imprint’s first offerings will be a Heat prequel that tracks Vincent and Neil’s early careers, as well as their burgeoning off-hours relationship. Even though the director is unlikely to pen the book himself, Heat fans will undoubtedly relish the opportunity to return to Mann’s gritty L.A. And if the book sells, he has other films on his résumé that would be strong fodder for the prequel treatment. Here are five Mann-affiliated novels we’d be eager to read in order of least to most excitement.

5. The Keep (1983)
Already based on a novel by F. Paul Wilson, Mann’s mash-up of a World War II drama and a supernatural horror picture still ranks as the oddest movie in his filmography, and the one that’s probably least reflective of his personal vision. (Legend has it that Paramount took his original three-hour cut and chopped it in half.) The jumbled plot involves a Nazi squadron occupying a remote citadel in Romania, and awaking a bloodthirsty paranormal force within. Since the supernatural stuff — which builds to a Tangerine Dream-scored confrontation between powerful beings Molasar (Michael Carter) and Glaeken (Scott Glenn) — is the least explicable part of the film version, a prequel could delve even more deeply into the backstory touched upon in the novel, journeying through the timestream to the “First Age” of man that Wilson describes on the page. And while The Keep’s original author deserves to get first crack at such a book, his publicly acknowledged dislike of the film might disqualify him from a publishing label that carries Mann’s name.

4. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Don’t feel bad if you couldn’t make it through James Fenimore Cooper’s 19th century frontier tale in high school. No less an esteemed personage than Mark Twain took an axe to Cooper’s literary ambition in a widely read essay. Mann’s movie version, on the other hand, couldn’t be more thrilling, with unlikely action hero Daniel Day Lewis bringing Cooper’s outdoorsman, Natty “Hawkeye” Bumppo, to vivid life. Bumppo starred in six Cooper novels written between 1823 and 1841, but his origins as the child of white settlers taken in and raised by a Native American tribe were never explored in great detail. (Although this outline written by Cooper’s daughter, Susan, provides some of that history.) There’s a great story to be told there… and by a better writer than Bumppo’s creator.

3. Collateral (2004)
C’mon, admit that you’re curious to read about the hit job that turned Tom Cruise’s hair that intense shade of grey. Apart from ranking among the actor’s finest performances, Collateral’s ace assassin Vincent is also one of the more mysterious characters in the Mann catalog. He’s a lone wolf, but also appears to enjoy collecting unwilling accomplices, and his ruthless efficiency can only come from many years (and probably several failures) on the hit-man beat. Forget just one prequel — an entire series of novels could be spun out of Vincent’s pre-Collateral days, and the many skeletons in his closet.

2. Thief (1981)
By the time we meet Frank (James Caan), the main character of Mann’s terrific feature debut, he’s an established burglar who hides his illicit activities behind a pair of legit businesses, and is actually looking to get out of the thievery business full time. But it took a lot of risk — and one jail stint — to arrive in that place, as real-life thief John Seybold (writing as Frank Hohimer) outlined in the non-fiction book that inspired the film, The Home Invaders. Fictional Frank’s time in the Big House would be particularly interesting to read in novel form, recreating the grimness of ’70s prison life for contemporary readers more accustomed to the dramedy of Orange Is the New Black.

1. Miami Vice (2006)
Sure, the TV series already showed us how Crockett and Tubbs met and became at first reluctant and then devoted partners. But that’s another time and another Miami. Mann’s underrated feature — which many rank among his best work, even though he doesn’t agree — brought the franchise up to the present day and gave it a global scale, sending the cops deep into the Caribbean. That’s the backdrop that we’d like to see in a Vice prequel book, outlining the duo’s first undercover operation when they were first learning “which way is up.” That book could also find a way to incorporate the planned ending of the Miami Vice feature, which Mann famously had to abandon after Jamie Foxx up and left the shoot.