Denis Villeneuve's Sicario has become one of the most unexpected success stories of the last few years. A dark crime thriller with a seemingly self-contained story, the film's success has allowed it to spin out into full blown franchise territory. That idea will take a big step forward with the upcoming release of Stefano Sollima's Soldado -- which will focus primarily on Benicio del Toro's Alejandro and Josh Brolin's Matt Graver -- and now it sounds like the film will go into a far darker realm than anything we saw in the original movie. Soldado screenwriter Taylor Sheridan recently opened up about the project and explained:
When I told them I would write it, they asked for the traditional studio call and the outline and all that, and I said, 'No, no, no, guys. The first one was original. I'm just going to go away and I'm going to come back with it and there you go.' And they trusted me to do that, and then read it and were like, 'Ah, shit. We're in a lot of trouble.' It makes the first one look like a comedy. Yeah. I'm not the guy to ask to write a sequel.
Taylor Sheridan's comments to Collider about the direction of this franchise are nothing if not intriguing. In many ways, it almost sounds as if the word "sequel" doesn't even necessarily apply. Sicario was our way into this particular world, but now it is about to evolve in very different (and endlessly more intense) direction. The first Sicario was one of the darkest and most unrelenting movies of the last decade; for Sheridan to say that it now looks "like a comedy" seems to promise something almost unprecedented in the world of crime thrillers.
Another enticing element of Soldado's story is the concept of what the upcoming film will actually remove from the original Sicario narrative. Sheridan spoke out about the movie at Sundance Film Festival and explained that the core premise of Soldado focuses on what happens when the police aspect of the first film is taken away. With Emily Blunt's Kate Macy not returning for another outing, the next installment in this franchise will focus far more heavily on what characters like Alejandro and Matt can do when the rule of law unencumbers them, and how they can truly get their hands dirty. So yeah, something tells us that they are going to get pretty bloody by the end of this one.
CinemaBlend will bring you more information related to Soldado as new details become available to us. The film does not currently have a set release date, but make sure to take a look at our 2017 movie premiere guide for more details on the rest of this year's theatrical releases!
