Sicario 3 Moves Forward With Steven Knight Replacing Taylor Sheridan As Writer

The third Sicario movie is officially happening with original stars Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin returning to the crime drama film series. Creative changes are coming to the top with a new director and writer on board for Sicario 3. Series creator Taylor Sheridan will apparently not be directly involved in the threequel despite previous reporting.

According to Deadline, the follow-up to 2018’s Sicario: Day of the Soldado will instead be written by Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders and writer behind films such as Eastern Promises and Spencer.

Variety reported that original Sicario writer and Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan had written the script for the third Sicario film. Production companies Black Label Media and Thunder Road are going in a different direction with Knight handling the story.

Padraic McKinley is on board to direct Sicario 3. McKinley’s credits include television series Fightworld and Kingdom alongside the recent film The Weight starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe.

The original Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve, explores America’s morally compromised war on drugs along the United States and Mexico border. The 2015 film starred Emily Blunt as principled Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Kate Macer, who is enlisted by the United States government to help capture a Mexican drug cartel leader with the aid of Central Intelligence Agency agent Matt Graver and former Mexican prosecutor turned assassin Alejandro Gillick. Graver and Gillick operate on the edges of the law and withhold crucial information from Macer, leading to a constant sense of tension and unease as violence threatens to erupt across multiple clandestine operations.

Sheridan wrote the sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which was directed by Stefano Sollima. Brolin and del Toro reprised their roles in the sequel while Blunt did not. Day of the Soldado was less well-received both commercially and critically. Villeneuve’s sensibilities and Roger Deakins’ Academy Award-nominated cinematography were sorely missed in the sequel.

The third Sicario movie, often referred to as Sicario: Capos, has been in development in some form since 2018. No release date is set, but Deadline reports that producers are aiming to start filming in early 2027.

Source: Polygon