In a recent podcast interview, filmmaker Michael Mann said that his previously discussed plans to turn his book Heat 2 into a film is "already underway." This is encouraging news, as it sounds more definitive than earlier this month, when Mann only made reference to possible plans far off in the future.

During an interview with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast, Mann said the sequel is already underway. "Yes," Maron responded when asked whether the film was in the works (via The Playlist). "I can't talk about it, but yes… this is a book, but it's also going to be a very large movie."

In an Empire Magazine interview, Mann spoke at length about his view for how the new novel will crack open a kind of Heat cinematic universe. The novel Heat 2, which he co-wrote with Meg Gardiner, was originally planned as a movie--and one that will, like the novel, serve as both a prequel and a sequel simultaneously to the 1995 film. All that's known about the film is it will not feature the return of Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, and Robert De Niro because, as Mann says, "I love those guys, but they'd have to be six years younger than they were in Heat."