Heat (1986)

Interesting facts

• Box office: $2.8M
• Budget: $12M
• Earned 0.2× its budget
• Based on: Heat

Heat is a 1986 American neo-noir dramatic action thriller film about an ex-mercenary working as a bodyguard in Las Vegas. The film was written by William Goldman, based on his 1985 novel of the same name. Heat was directed by Dick Richards and Jerry Jameson. The film stars Burt Reynolds, Karen Young, Peter MacNicol, Howard Hesseman, Neill Barry and Joseph Mascolo.

Production

In 2000, William Goldman published his second volume of memoirs, Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade. He mentioned Heat briefly, saying "the reason you will not learn more about this baby in these pages is simple: to my knowledge, lawsuits are still flying." He added that it was "One of my major disasters...", with a record six directors, who "...

Burt Reynolds was paid $2 million ($5.9 million today) to play the lead role. In 1987, he discussed how "I don't think Heat and Malone", another film he made shortly after, "are the movies that are going to change my career." He added "at least they are serious films which people have told me I should have been doing for years.

Reynolds apparently initiated the project, having read the novel and calling Goldman about turning it into a film.

In February 1986 it was announced Robert Altman was to direct. This was considered a surprising choice; although Altman had previously made The Long Goodbye with producer Elliot Kastner, the two men had a major falling out when Altman was going to direct 92 in the Shade. But Carol Burnett encouraged Altman to work with Burt Reynolds and the director liked the star, so he accepted.

He left the film shortly afterwards. He was replaced by Dick Richards, with whom Kastner had made Farewell, My Lovely.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.