Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr. Return for a High-Stakes European Diamond Heist in Final Trailer for "Den of Thieves 2: Pantera"

When the 2018 crime thriller Den of Thieves, starring Gerard Butler as a hard-boiled LA cop who loves to break rules to catch dirtbag criminals, hit theaters, it earned a respectable amount at the box office. Critics, however, dismissed it as a poor man's version of Michael Mann's classic LA neo-noir Heat. To be fair, most recent crime thrillers don't even come close to the same level as Heat. So, it's nice to see a movie like Den of Thieves make the effort, even if it occasionally feels like a watered-down, paperback version.

Fast forward six years, and Den of Thieves has become one of those movies that people seem to have a strong fondness for, even though it's unclear exactly how that happened. Could it be that it found its audience on streaming? Perhaps. It could also be that people really enjoyed Gerard Butler's performance as 'Big Nick' O'Brien, a grimy, rule-breaking L.A. detective who is just as dangerous as the criminals he chases. Nevertheless, Big Nick is back! This time, he's taken a new path, finding himself in Europe, trying to infiltrate one of the most notorious diamond-stealing syndicates in the world — the infamous Panther Mafia. It seems Big Nick is going to use his no-nonsense attitude to pose as a professional thief. The thing is, maybe this time, Nick is thinking that life as a criminal is way more rewarding than life as a cop. "And the cop goes gangster," as teased in this new final trailer for the upcoming sequel, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.

Set to a pulsating, rhythmic beat, this new trailer does a great job of showing viewers that this sequel has a different tone than the original. Instead of paying homage to Michael Mann's Heat, it seems the filmmakers may have been drawing inspiration from another of Mann's famous cop thrillers, Miami Vice. Either way, the Den of Thieves franchise just might be the closest thing we get to a new Heat film — unless, of course, Michael Mann finally delivers that Heat prequel he's been promising us for years.

Written and directed by Christian Gudegast, the mastermind behind the original Den of Thieves, the upcoming sequel brings O’Shea Jackson Jr. back as Donnie Wilson, who is pulled back into the action after narrowly escaping the first film's events. This time, Donnie finds himself in the nighttime world of European diamond thieves. Meanwhile, Big Nick, shedding his corrupt cop persona, goes undercover as a criminal, pressuring Donnie into joining his dangerous mission to infiltrate the notorious Panther Mafia.

Featuring Swedish actress Evin Ahmad (Snabba Cash, Netflix's Who Is Erin Carter?) as a powerful international diamond smuggler, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera will be breaking into theaters on January 10th. Time to see if Big Nick can get away clean — or at least just enough for another sequel!