I was never convinced that Sicario was a movie that could kick off a franchise, but Hollywood seemed to disagree as a trilogy of spinoff movies have been planned, further peeling back the layers of this grimy world. I don’t agree with this further exploration. Denis Villeneuve’s 2015 thriller was one of the best films of last year, but the intentional mystery surrounding several of its characters and scenarios was one of its strongest aspects as you felt as out of depth as Emily Blunt’s FBI Agent.
Blunt isn’t returning for the planned followup, titled Soldado, which is set to follow Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro’s shady governmental killers in a standalone story that sees them “concern themselves with what is being smuggled across the border between Mexico and the U.S. in the tunnels used to move drugs and illegal immigrants.”. The first film already saw these two “good guys” get up to some pretty bad stuff in the so-called name of justice and law, but their actions may be even more brutal than that in the new movie.
That’s according to what returning screenwriter Taylor Sheridan told Collider earlier in the week.
Lionsgate understood that they bought something that was a spec [on the first film]. So there was a certain amount of latitude they had to give me [on the sequel]. What usually would be a long meeting about what’s this character about, what’s his arc—we didn’t have that. They trusted me to just go do it, and with Sicario, which I’m really proud of, it really approaches some difficult subjects. I didn’t want to demean that with the second one.
So I really wrote something I double dared them to actually make. Ten times more unsentimental, more vicious and really reflective… It’s funny a lot of people think Sicario‘s about the drug war and the cartels. It’s not. It’s a movie about American policy and the way that we police and [Sicario 2] is that on steroids.
Sicario was already pretty vicious to begin with, so a roided up version could be ridiculously intense. Villeneuve, who is a master craftsman at ratcheting up tension, isn’t returning to helm though, so we will have to see how new director Stefano Sollima handles this heightened stakes.
Last Updated: August 4, 2016
