Eight years. That is how long I have been waiting for someone to say the words "Sicario 3" and mean it. Today they did: the original trio is coming back, there is a director and a writer, and cameras are set to roll early next year. Here is everything that is actually confirmed, and why I have not stopped grinning since I read it.
Some franchises you like. Sicario is one I think about. The Juárez convoy in the first film is still the most tense stretch of movie I have ever sat through in a theater, and I have rewatched both movies more times than I would admit to a stranger. So when Day of the Soldado ended in 2018 with an obvious setup for a third chapter, I assumed I would be watching it in two, maybe three years.
Instead I got years of "it's in development" headlines, a writers' strike, a revolving door of attached names and the occasional cryptic Josh Brolin interview to keep the faith alive. Which is why this morning's news hit the way it did.
What is actually confirmed
Deadline broke the story on October 5, 2026, and the details lined up across every outlet that followed it. Here is the list, with nothing added:
Director: Padraic McKinley, whose 2026 film The Weight is what got him the job.
Writer: Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, who is also writing the next James Bond film for Denis Villeneuve.
Producers: Molly Smith, Trent Luckinbill and Thad Luckinbill for Black Label Media, Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee for Thunder Road, plus Ed McDonnell. Black Label and Thunder Road produced the first two films as well.
Production: set to start in early 2027.
Studio and release date: neither exists yet. The project is being taken out to buyers rather than going straight back to Lionsgate, which released the first two.
To be precise about the headline everyone is sharing: Sicario 3 is officially in the works, not yet in front of cameras. Filming begins next year. After eight years of nothing, I will happily take a start date over a rumor.
Emily Blunt is back, and that changes everything
This is the part that got an actual out-loud reaction from me. Blunt's Kate Macer was the audience's eyes in the first film: a by-the-book FBI agent dragged into an operation she was never meant to understand. She was nowhere in Day of the Soldado, and while I liked that sequel more than a lot of people did, you could feel the missing conscience in it.
1Sicario (2015)
The one that started it, and still the high-water mark.
Denis Villeneuve directed it from Taylor Sheridan's script, Roger Deakins shot it and Jóhann Jóhannsson wrote a score that feels less like music and more like a pressure drop. It runs 122 minutes, and TMDB has it at roughly $85 million worldwide on a $30 million budget.
The last real conversation between Kate and Alejandro is the scene I have been replaying in my head for a decade. He leaves her alive, leaves her broken, and tells her to go somewhere the rule of law still exists. Putting those two back in a room together is the single best thing a third film could do, and now it gets the chance.
Stefano Sollima took over directing, Sheridan wrote again, and the story put Del Toro's Alejandro and Brolin's Matt Graver in charge of a plan to start a cartel war, with Isabela Merced as Isabel Reyes, the kingpin's daughter caught in the middle. TMDB lists it at about $76 million worldwide on a $35 million budget.
Spoiler for a seven-year-old movie: Alejandro survives what should have been a fatal shot, and the epilogue jumps ahead a year to him walking up to the young recruit Miguel and offering to talk about his future. That scene has been sitting there unanswered since 2018. It is the reason a lot of us never stopped asking.
Nobody has said a word about the plot of Sicario 3, so I am not going to pretend otherwise. But with Kate, Alejandro and Matt all back, it is hard not to hope this is the film that finally makes all three of them answer for the first one.
A new director and a new writer: worried?
Honestly, a little, and I think any fan who says otherwise is lying. Villeneuve and Sheridan built the tone of this series, and neither is back. Sheridan wrote both previous films but is now running half of television, and earlier attempts at a third script, including one from Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen, never got made.
Here is why I am choosing excitement anyway. Steven Knight writes men who are calm on the outside and terrifying underneath, which is a decent description of Alejandro. A first-time feature director is a gamble, but Day of the Soldado proved this world can survive a change behind the camera. And the producers who kept this alive for eight years clearly were not going to settle for just any version of it.
Three actors, one border and eight years of unfinished business. I would have taken a lot less than this.
What this fan wants from Sicario 3
The silence. Both films understand that the scariest moments are the quiet ones. Keep the long stillness before the violence.
Kate as the center again. Not a cameo. She was the moral argument of the first film and the series has missed her.
Consequences for Matt Graver. Brolin plays him as a man who always walks away clean. I want to see the bill arrive.
Miguel's story, paid off. That epilogue was a loaded gun. Fire it.
A score that rattles the seats. Jóhannsson died in 2018 and Hildur Guðnadóttir scored the sequel. Whoever comes next needs to keep that dread in the low end.
How to wait until 2027 (or later)
Rewatch both. Seriously. The first one plays completely differently once you know who Alejandro really is, and Day of the Soldado is better than its reviews on a second viewing. Then, if you want more Del Toro and Brolin, both films above have trailers you can open straight from this page.
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