Heat

E3 2006

On May 11, 2006, during E3 2006, Titan Productions announced that it had drawn an agreement with Regency Entertainment, which owns the rights to the Heat film, to produce a game based on the movie for next generation consoles. Titan said that the film's director Michael Mann was in talks with Gearbox Software to oversee the game's development. The game was said to be a prequel or a sequel to the film, depending on which talents came on board. If the game was a sequel, Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro's character) would appear in a flashback. If Al Pacino declined to lend his voice and likeness to the game, there would be a new detective chasing after McCauley's crew. At the time of this press release, Titan stated that it was in "advanced stages with representatives for Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Val Kilmer to be part of the video game sequel."

Ubidays 2007

After the 2006 announcement, nothing was heard about the game until Ubidays 2007, when Gearbox Software announced its game based on the Aliens series. During the event, Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford was interviewed by Gamereactor, and when asked about the Heat game, he said "I've had some meetings with Michael Mann, [and] I think there's some room for interactive entertainment to deal with the challenges between cops and robbers." He followed up claiming that development on the game had not even started yet, but he was very enthusiastic to go ahead with the game.

E3 2009

During GameSpot's E3 2009 stage show, Gearbox head Randy Pitchford stated that development on the Heat video game had still not begun. He said he was a huge fan of Heat and hopes that Gearbox will eventually make the game.

Borderlands Press Event - July, 2009

In an interview with GameSpot posted on August 2, 2009, from an event demoing Gearbox's new IP, Borderlands, Randy Pichford stated that the Heat game was at an indefinite standstill and Gearbox would not be retaining rights to the property. He cited the growing number of current Gearbox projects as the primary reason for the game's halt in production.

In the article, Pitchford explained, "In a nutshell, we're nowhere. We have passionate game makers that would love to do it. We've got filmmakers that think it's a great idea that would love to see it done. We have publishing partners that would love to publish it. But we have no time. That's the limiting factor. Because of the situation, we're not keeping the IP locked down anymore. So if somebody else were in a spot where they could do it, and everybody was comfortable with that, then conceivably that could happen."

When asked about the possibility of voice acting from De Niro, Pacino, and Kilmer, he added, "No deals were done, but we had a lot of confidence that, from my understanding, Pacino was into it and that Val would do it. De Niro wanted to, but there needed to be some more conversations with him. He's not a gamer himself. Michael told me he had dinner with those guys a couple of times to talk about it, and he believed it was all going to be fine." Thus, it is safe to assume the actors are willing to come on board if the IP is ever picked up by another studio.