Robert De Niro, Al Pacino to come together again

In what is being billed as a pivotal moment in movie history, acting legends Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are to star on screen together for only the second time, a report said Thursday.

De Niro and Pacino, who have three Oscars between them and are widely regarded as the finest acting talents of their generation, will appear together for the first time since Michael Mann's 1995 classic

Heat.

Their participation in the film --

Righteous Kill

-- was reported by the online edition of entertainment journal Variety on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival.

Avi Lerner, one of the film's co-producers, told Variety: "This is an event in world history." De Niro and Pacino "were in two scenes in

Heat.

he added. "In this movie, they are in the whole thing together," he said.

Filming for the crime thriller will begin in August, the report said. The film will see Pacino and De Niro playing police officers on the trail of a serial killer. Another co-producer, Randall Emmett, said the idea for the film originated from the two acting legends' desire to co-star.

"They're friends, and this really all got started from that," he said.