Michael Mann Says Scott Cooper Set To Direct Western Project ‘Comanche’ & Confirms Hopes To Shoot ‘Heat 2’ In 2026 – Lumière Festival

Michael Mann has revealed that Scott Cooper will direct his Western project Comanche, inspired by the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, a white woman who was kidnapped by Comanches as a child and later lived as a Comanche woman.

He was replying to a question on two long-gestated Westerns he has been planning to make for some time.

“I want to do a western. I have two screenplays, one of which I’m not going to do, I’m going to produce and Scott Cooper is going to do… it’s called Comanche,” Mann told a masterclass at the Lumière Festival on Friday.

Mann wrote the long-gestated project in the early 2000s with Eric Roth but the film has never gotten off the ground.

Actor and director Cooper currently gearing up for release of his Bruce Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, starring Jeremy Allen White as the rock star.

Mann also gave an update on his plans for Heat 2, saying negotiations were ongoing and that he hoped to shoot the film in 2026.

The director is at the Lumière Festival in Lyon as its honorary guest of the festival spearheaded by Cannes delegate general in his other role as head of the Institut Lumière.

In a wide-ranging masterclass, Mann touched on a number of his works which screened at the festival as part of the tribute including The Jericho Mile (1979), Thief (1981), The Keep (1983),  Manhunter (1986), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), Ali (2001) and Collateral (2004).

The director will be feted with the Lumière Award in front of a 3,000-strong crowd at the festival on Friday evening.