It’s been years since the first sequel, 2018’s Day Of Soldado, but franchise star Josh Brolin says that Sicario 3 is still happening.
Stories about Sicario 3 keep popping up from time to time, but we’ve seen few signs of life from the film itself.
Josh Brolin appears to be one of the figures actively willing the drug trade thriller sequel into existence – or at any rate he’s the one who appears to bring the subject up in interviews.
Most recently, Brolin told ScreenRant that not only is Sicario 3 still happening, but it’s also set to go into production “soon”.
It’s slim pickings in news terms, admittedly, but also the first thing we’ve heard about the film in roughly two years.
The film series itself is well over a decade old at this point; Denis Villeneuve directed the 2015 original with coiled restraint, turning Taylor Sheridan’s terse script about the CIA’s involvement in the Mexican drug trade into two hours of sweaty-palmed suspense.
Brolin was quietly menacing as CIA agent Matt Graver; Benicio del Toro was flat-out terrifying as a former Colombian legal eagle turned state-sponsored murderer. Trapped between the two was Emily Blunt’s FBI agent Kate Mercer, an idealistic innocent unprepared for the merciless world she’s sent into by her superiors.
Sicario 2: Day Of The Soldado emerged in 2018, and replacement director Stefano Sollia demonstrated what happens when you take a tough Sheridan script and treat it like a traditional action thriller. It was entertaining enough, but didn’t drill into the memory like Villeneuve’s outing.
For years, there was little obvious movement from a third film in the series, with Brolin lamenting in 2023 that it was becoming increasingly tough to secure financing for mid-budget thrillers.
“Sicario 3, we’ve been trying to get that right and get that going,” he said, “but why hasn’t it happened? How long can you wait? A tough movie to get made even though the two made money, and people are asking about it all the time”.
It sounds as though money has since been pulled together from somewhere. But if filming’s imminent, who’s making it? As ScreenRant points out, Villeneuve’s busy on other things, with Dune Part Three nearly finished and a James Bond film beckoning after that. Taylor Sheridan, meanwhile, is hard at work making all the TV shows currently emanating from Paramount.
There were rumours that Christopher McQuarrie, of Mission: Impossible fame, was getting involved, though that may have been so much hot air.
Is Brolin so frustrated by the situation that he’s decided to write, direct and star in Sicario 3? Probably not, but it would be fascinating to see the results, let’s face it.
We’ll bring you more on this odd saga as we get it.
