Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin will reunite for the third film in the Sicario series. Director Padraic McKinley and screenwriter Steven Knight are attached; filming is planned to begin in early 2027, Al Jazeera reported.
All three actors from the 2015 original are set to return, TheWrap reported. Blunt will reprise FBI agent Kate Macer, del Toro will again play former Colombian prosecutor-turned-CIA operative Alejandro Gillick, and Brolin will return as intelligence officer Matt Graver. Blunt did not appear in the 2018 sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado.
Padraic McKinley, director of The Weight, is attached to direct, with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight writing the screenplay. TheWrap said plot details have not been announced. Al Jazeera reported that the actors agreed to return after reading a new draft and that production is expected to begin in early 2027.
Macer’s return brings back a character who served as the audience’s moral point of reference in the first film. She joined a covert operation against a Mexican cartel believing she was acting within the law, then gradually learned that she had been used as legal cover for objectives she had not been told about.
The sequel centered on Graver and Gillick. In its story, an attempt to provoke a cartel war is complicated by the abduction of a cartel leader’s daughter; Graver is later ordered to eliminate witnesses and erase the operation’s traces. The ending left the story open: Gillick encounters Miguel, a teenager involved in migrant smuggling who had shot him, and asks whether he wants to become a sicario.
Denis Villeneuve directed the first film, which received three Oscar nominations — for Roger Deakins’ cinematography, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score and Alan Robert Murray’s sound editing. Made for about $30 million, it grossed roughly $85 million worldwide. Stefano Sollima directed Day of the Soldado, which earned about $75.8 million on a $35 million budget.
Taylor Sheridan wrote the first two films. Producer Thad Luckinbill said Sheridan’s television commitments made his involvement in the third film difficult, although the producers wanted to work with him again. Producer Molly Smith said in 2023 that Sheridan had envisioned Sicario as a trilogy with a conclusion worthy of its world and characters.
The third film is being produced by Molly Smith, Trent and Thad Luckinbill, Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee and Ed McDonnell. The working title Sicario: Capos had previously appeared in media reports, but the studios have not confirmed it as the final title. TheWrap said plot details remain undisclosed.
Blunt’s return reconnects the new film to the original story and creates room to examine the consequences of earlier events for Macer, Graver and Gillick. Al Jazeera wrote that the project’s dramatic potential will depend on whether their reunion confronts the legacy of those operations or simply sends them on another mission.