“Amazon is in transition, which is why they bought Bond. They’re in a transition to become something more than a streaming service. They have ambitions be a major, I don’t want to speak for Amazon, a major figure in exhibition, in theatrical,” Mann said at the press conference, per Deadline. “The potential, because the movie would come out in almost two years from now, the potential of the synergy within Amazon is massive.”
It wasn’t made clear in the conference or in Deadline‘s write-up what exactly “synergy” for an Amazon theatrical rollout would look like. For example, Amazon already has products from its shopping platform linked to and readily accessible for purchase on its streaming platform, as anyone who has ever paused a show on Prime Video knows. But Mann does know that getting Heat 2 made is going to be expensive, which is how he ended up making it at Amazon-MGM. “It’s complex,” he said, explaining that he hopes to shoot the film in Los Angeles, Chicago, Paraguay, and potentially Singapore. “People make dramas at a certain budget level… because of the costs, Heat 2 is probably double that. So, if it was at a low, low price, I could have made it anywhere. But it’s complex. I can’t get into all the politics of it, but we moved from Warner Brothers to Amazon and United Artists.”
There’s no release timeline yet for Heat 2, but earlier this month, The Hollywood Reporter suggested that Leonardo DiCaprio, Austin Butler, and Adam Driver were circling the film.
