Josh Brolin On Why “Sicario 3” Is Unlikely

In 2015, director Denis Villeneuve and writer Taylor Sheridan teamed up to deliver “Sicario,” a smart action thriller made on a relatively modest $30 million budget.

The result was a highly acclaimed film that competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, scored some of the year’s best reviews, landed three Oscar nominations, and generated a decent $85 million at the box-office.

It was good enough to greenlight a sequel. Whilst Sheridan returned to script, Stefano Sollima took over as director. Reviews weren’t as good but still quite positive, and the film made slightly less at $75.8 million despite a higher budget of around $40 million.

There’s been talk of a third entry for a while, but franchise star Josh Brolin says he’s concerned about whether or not it will happen as the industry has changed so much in the past few years.

In fact, he tells Variety that many of the great directors he’s worked with over the years are now struggling to get those kinds of mid-budget adult-skewing dramas greenlit:

“These people that I got to work with aren’t necessarily doing a lot of films now. All these people that you’re talking about, Paul Thomas Anderson, it’s tough for him to do a film. Paul’s become a really close friend, and I loved working with him on ‘Inherent Vice.’ I can’t wait to see what he does next. But I think he knows that these types of movies are not necessarily getting made so much anymore, $20-45 million dollar movies.

Would ‘No Country [for Old Men] get made today? Would ‘True Grit’ get made today? Would ‘Sicario’ get made today? ‘Sicario 3,’ we’ve been trying to get that right and get that going, 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.”

Brolin previously indicated that a script for a third “Sicario” has been written. but in post-pandemic Hollywood, getting a sequel to a franchise that mostly scored its revenue on home video is a tough ask.