When Christian Gudegast wrote the first draft for Den of Thieves, a grimy cat-and-mouse thriller inspired by the longtime Angeleno’s real-life interactions with the criminal underbelly of Los Angeles, Michael Mann hadn’t made his acclaimed crime film Heat yet. So by the time Gudegast made his directorial debut with Den of Thieves in 2017, he was a little amused when people called it “dirtbag Heat.”
“The funny thing is, is that I wrote the initial outline draft, before Heat was ever released,” Gudegast tells Inverse.
