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Why Heat Is The Only Movie Michael Mann Made TWICE
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Mar 31, 2025
The Michael Mann movie Heat will forever be considered one of the best action movies ever made. The gritty realism, dedication to detail, and razor sharp dialogue puts Heat above almost every other action movie of the last 30 years. But this wasn't Michael Mann's first attempt at directing this script. Before Heat, Mann released his film LA Takedown, which is basically the same movie. But why did Michael Mann direct the same movie twice?
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This is Heat
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It's arguably one of the best crime films ever produced. Directed by Michael Mann, the visionary behind Miami Vice
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Thief, and Collateral, the movie has become a staple of crime cinema. And yet, despite all of its accolades and critical acclaim
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the film holds an even more interesting and unique title. Heat is the only film Michael Mann directed twice
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Allow nothing to be in your life. that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner
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Today, the film Heat is looked at as a classic. Its superb performances, slick cinematography, and gritty realism
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propelled it to being a cultural phenomenon when it was released in 1995
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It's so revered for its technical know-how and precise attention to detail that multiple criminal organizations have said
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they've studied the various heists in the film and modeled their real-world criminal efforts after it
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In fact, the U.S. military shows it in basic training as an example of the bounding Overwatch field tactics being deployed flawlessly
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The film follows two men on opposite sides of the law, a detective, played by Al Pacino, and a criminal, played by Robert De Niro
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However, unlike in other more trite genre explorations, these men have lives outside of their jobs
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They have emotions, families, and individuals who can be counted as collateral damage
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to the all-consuming nature of their extra-legal work. That's what sets Heat apart from other crime films
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The fact that it's equally about men who give their all to a singular profession
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and are wrapped up in the complexities of real-world scenarios that directly conflict with the nature of their work
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The finely honed balance of the dual leads, the razor-sharp dialogue, What am I doing? I'm talking to an empty telephone
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I don't understand. Because there was a dead man on the other end of this f***ing line. and the tension-filled atmosphere of this modern-day crime classic
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all emphasize and reiterate this theme. The film is intensely interrogating the idea that nothing is free
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Everything has a cost, even things that are stolen. The grounded realism of the film
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and the intricately woven details of the story weren just pulled from thin air though Where the f did this heat come from They were created because Michael Mann started this project almost a decade earlier as a TV show The story of heat and the TV project that
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came before it were based loosely on the true life relationship between Chicago police officer
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Chuck Adamson and the notorious criminal Neil McCauley. McCauley was a notorious professional
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bank robber and thief that Adamson spent much of his adult life trying to apprehend. In some ways
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the two men were a real life Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty. Mirror images of each
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other. Michael Mann met Adamson in the mid-1970s. Adamson had retired from the police force and was
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making his way through Hollywood as a consultant on film and TV projects. The two were running in
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similar circles and both ended up working on projects together. Adamson's stories of his time
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tracking Macaulay inspired Michael Mann to begin to develop Crime Story, a project that would seek
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to explore the fine line between the criminal element of society and the officers who dedicate
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their lives to tracking them down, and how without the societal constructs and social contracts of
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badges and uniforms, the men we deem as heroes are, more often than not, more similar to the
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criminals they hunt. I do what I do best. I take scores. You do what you do best, trying to stop
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guys like me. The key to breaking the story for man came when Adamson told him a story that was
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too outlandish to be true, and yet was completely real. During his time tracking Macaulay in Chicago
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Adamson went to a local diner for a cup of late-night coffee and literally bumped into
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Macaulay. The two men, initially shocked and distrustful, ended up sitting down for a cup of
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coffee. They exchanged some veiled threats and then quickly discovered that they were very similar
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people. Mann became enthralled with this story and quickly dove into building a story around the
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deeply emotional connection between the two men. What do you say I buy you a cup of coffee
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Yeah, sure, let's go. Follow me. The early versions of this project went by multiple names
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LA Crime Wave and Made in LA being two of them, and then finally was produced under the title of
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LA Takedown. Mann wrote a gritty street level story that followed a robbery homicide sergeant, Vincent
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Hannah, played by Scott Plank, who we follow on the trail of a gang of ruthless professional criminals
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The leader of the group, Patrick McLaren, played by Alex MacArthur is the mirror image of Hannah He a devoted criminal having little in his life other than a supreme devotion to his craft He dedicated himself to a life on the edge to an existence on the underbelly of society
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Things spiral out of control for a group of robbers after a job goes wrong, and the new guy on the team
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Wayne Grove, played by Xander Berkeley, kills an armored guard, and the cops turn up the heat
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Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Michael Mann began writing the story in the mid-1970s
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prior to him having a substantial film career. He took what he claims was roughly 40% of the original script and turned it into a pilot for
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a show called LA Takedown. This would eventually be reworked again for a made-for-TV feature film
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LA Takedown failed to manifest a TV show despite being the follow-up to Miami Vice for Michael Mann
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When watching the finished film version of the story, you can kind of see why. It has all the
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style of Miami Vice, but it doesn't have the bright characters or vivid setting of Miami
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It takes place in LA. It's a gritty, seedy, more grounded version of police life
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Vincent Hanna doesn't have a pet alligator like Sonny Crockett, and so the project just died the death that most do in Hollywood
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It was just put on the shelf. But cut to a few years later in 1994
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and now the fully established post-Last of the Mohicans Michael Mann was having lunch with the producer Art Linson
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They discussed what projects Mann was working on, and the topic of the failed LA takedown came up
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After reading the original screenplay, Linson convinced Mann to make it his next project
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Remake the movie. retell the story the way it should have been done the first time
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LA Takedown was produced in 19 days, with 10 days of pre-production and a modest budget
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This time, Heat would be produced with six months of pre-production, 107-day schedule, and a budget of $60 million
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Heat, released in 1995, follows the exact same plot structure as LA Takedown
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Wayne Grove, played by the incarnation of Kevin Gage, loses his cool and shoots a guard during an armored car robbery
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The film follows all of the same beats of the story, but just with more texture and time spent with the characters
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Things work out. I'd consider working with you guys again, you know. Yeah, this works good. I'd consider going again, you know
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The major difference between Heat and LA Takedown come from the scale
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intensity and ferocity of the two pictures The films are structurally the same We meet Hannah learn about his life which then transitions into the McLaren character committing an armored car robbery and looking to steal bearer bonds The car robberies share the same building blocks but have
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a much bigger scale. In LA Takedown, the criminal crew just use a garbage truck to knock over the
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armored car, throw a smoke grenade, and steal the bearer bonds. In Heat, it's much more elaborate
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They use a semi-truck, they have a spike strip, and an ambulance, which they use as both a means
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of stopping the armored car and as an escape vehicle. The same can be said for the infamous diner scene
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Yes, the story that Adamson told Mann back in the 1970s about having a cup of coffee with Neil Macaulay
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Buy you a cup of coffee. What do you say I buy you a cup of coffee? That is the linchpin of both narratives
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the moments when our two rivals sit down and recognize their similarities
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Much of this scene in both films is word for word the exact same
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You looking to become a panologist? You looking to go back? I am never going back
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It holds the same thematic spot in each film too. It's where our two main characters
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each supremely dedicated to their jobs, recognize that the other man is their mirror image
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and don't back down. The third acts of the film are slightly divergent
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in that they both have crimes gone wrong, but the fallout manifests in different ways
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This all leads to a simple question. Why? Why would Michael Mann redirect a film
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he had already produced? What would the benefit be? The answer is simple
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He didn't get it right the first time. Heat, LA Takedown, Made in LA, whatever you want to call it
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was a story he had in his head for close to 30 years. And when he finally got a chance to make it
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he didn't have the resources to make it right. So he did it again
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Maybe that's the way it'll be. Maybe we'll never see each other again
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In 1995, Michael Mann could have literally done anything he wanted to
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and he chose to remake LA Takedown. Michael Mann was so compelled by the thematics of LA Takedown
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which are very similar to those in Miami Vice, Collateral, and Thief
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that he used his newfound star power to literally re-film a script he believed in
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but that hadn't gotten a fair shake. He chose to double down on his own vision
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and it worked. He took a forgettable made-for-TV movie and turned it into a genre classic
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