Sicario 3 is “very close” to going into production with Benicio del Toro returning, according to Black Label Media heads Trent Luckinbill and Molly Smith. The production company is premiering a new Netflix crime-thriller this week called Reptile, which stars Del Toro and Justin Timberlake. While promoting Reptile, Luckinbill, and Smith teased the fact that they have the third Sicario movie on deck and ready to go – once the Actor’s Strike is over.
Videos by ComicBook.com
“We’re very close. It’s one of the projects where we’re ready to put the train on the tracks as soon as the strike ends and our path is cleared. So we’re very excited to get that whole band back together,” Molly Smith said. “Taylor [Sheridan] always envisioned it as a trilogy, so we have to close it out right. There’s no point in making it unless we can do justice to the true fans of Sicario. The characters and the world Taylor created are so amazing, and we’re very excited for Sicario 3.”
Sicario was released in 2015 and only a modest box office hit ($85 million on a $30 million budget). However, Sicario became a cult-hit breakout for its dark, hard-hitting tone and the lead performances of Benicio del Toro, Emily Blunt, and John Brolin. More notably, the film established director Denis Villeneuve (Dune) and Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone) as major Hollywood talents, who would go on to bigger things afterward.
The sequel film, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, was not the arthouse achievement that the first film was, but earned roughly the same amount ($75.8 million on a budget of $40+ million). Sicario 2 solidified the mythos of del Toro’s Alejandro Gillick, the titular Sicario (hitman), and his precarious role as an assassin working with morally questionable US espionage agents like Brolin’s CIA officer Matt Graver.
However, the end of Sicario 2 left a lot of fans scratching their heads. Del Toro’s Alejandro cornered a young Mexican-American boy who sold him out for execution as a gang initiation. Gillick’s line to the boy when ambushing him at a gang office (“So you want to be a Sicario? Let’s talk about your future…”) had fans debating whether their favorite hitman was taking on an apprentice, or delivering one last slick line before finishing business with some well-measured vengeance (which is, admittedly, his signature).
Guess Sicario 3 (or “Sicario: Capos“) will reveal which one it is.
Related Posts
-
Could he still be in the spinoff?
