Sicario 3 Officially Moves Forward, Replacing Taylor Sheridan

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. But there will be some creative changes at the top, with a new director and new writer coming on board for Sicario 3. And that means that, despite previous reporting, series creator Taylor Sheridan apparently won’t be directly involved in the threequel.

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.

Last week, Variety reported that original Sicario writer and Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan had written the script for the third Sicario film. But according to Deadline, production companies Black Label Media and Thunder Road are going in a different direction, with Knight handling the story.

Padraic McKinley reportedly is on board to direct Sicario 3. McKinley’s credits include TV series Fightworld and Kingdom and 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 U.S.-Mexico border. The 2015 film starred Emily Blunt as principled FBI agent Kate Macer, who is enlisted by the U.S. government to help capture a Mexican drug cartel leader with the aid of CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and former Mexican prosecutor turned assassin Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro). 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; 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. There’s no release date set, but Deadline reports that producers are aiming to start filming in early 2027.