Josh Brolin on the more severe and extremely emotional Sicario sequel

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Denis Villeneuve's SICARIO was one of my favourite films of 2015, but it wasn't exactly a movie which was crying out for a follow-up, which made the news that a sequel was being considered even before the first film had been released a little surprising. Called SOLDADO, the new film will follow Benicio Del Toro's Alejandro Gillick and Josh Brolin's CIA agent Matt Graver as they continue diving into the world of drug cartel's and assassins. As Denis Villeneuve moved on to other projects, Stefano Sollima (GOMORRAH) stepped in to direct, but Taylor Sheridan (WIND RIVER) returned to pen the script.

Production on SOLDADO has already wrapped, and Collider caught up with Josh Brolin to pick his brain on how SOLDADO compares to SICARIO.

I think it’s just more severe, man. All the way around. I think the characters are more severe. I think the movie is more severe. I think it’s just much bigger. It’s just a bigger scope film. Like I said, when I saw it it was like Sicario felt like a small movie to me, even though it was a very intimate movie. I’ve always said I don’t understand why bigger movies can’t be just as intimate, if not more intimate. Why do they have to be less emotional? I think Soldado‘s a perfect example of that. I think it’s extremely emotional. I think it’s extremely tense and it deals with similar subject matters.

Josh Brolin said that he was actually surprised at how good SOLDADO turned out, adding that he went through a similar experience with SICARIO. Although Brolin thought SICARIO turned into a "really f**king good movie," he merely thought that the film was just going to be "OK" throughout production.

I kind of felt the same way [with Soldado], and maybe that all stems from Taylor Sheridan’s writing and the fact that you can only fuck up his scripts to a certain extent, but it’s still going to be a good movie because maybe it does all start with the script. When you have an OK script you’re constantly manipulating it to make it sound decent, is one thing. When you have a great script and you’re just trying to do justice to it, maybe that’s something else, and I think that’s what we experienced with him.

SOLDADO is set for a June 29, 2018 release.