With Michael Mann finally returning to feature filmmaking this fall with Ferrari, which is enjoying a festival run ahead of its Christmas debut, the filmmaker is eying what to do next. It seems like an Adam Driver-led Heat 2 is very much in the cards––though one wonders if WB’s greenlit status will be dependent on the success of Ferrari. In the meantime, the director is also developing another project.
Variety reports the Miami Vice helmer is working on an adaptation of Ryoo Seung-wan’s 2015 crime thriller Veteran, a massive hit in South Korea as it is currently the 5th-highest-grossing film in the country. The crowd-pleaser follows a detective who is tracking down a young, wealthy, and privileged business owner who is running his own crime syndicate.
Currently in the development stage, it’s not decided yet if Mann will just produce and script or direct the project himself. Prior to the writing strike, Mann was working with the U.S. and Korean wings of CJ ENM in developing the project, which would be set in a U.S. city. “We are developing a script with Michael Mann, but his role and our schedule are not fixed yet,” a source reported to Variety.
Luke Hicks said in his Venice review of Ferrari, “Michael Mann’s first feature since 2015’s Blackhat offers a late-career challenge: a time and place the iconic writer, director, producer has never touched: 1950s Italy. He’s done the ’30s, the ’60s, the ’70s, and almost all modernity. But never the ’50s. And his stories rarely leave the United States. When they do (e.g. Ali, Miami Vice), it’s often for a brief pit stop. Modena is tone, setting, and mood, an aesthetic invasive and beloved enough to be the heart of all three.”
Watch the trailer for the original Veteran below, which is now streaming on Netflix, as well as some recent Q&As with Mann from the 61st New York Film Festival.