There are still a lot of questions surrounding Soldado, the follow-up to Denis Villeneuve's Sicario. Without Emily Blunt's character involved, and a focus set squarely on Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin's, it's unclear just how the two movies will fit together. Well, how about not at all?
Producer Basil Iwaynk tells Collider that Soldado will basically be a standalone effort, going so far that you won't know if it's a prequel or sequel...
“You have no idea if it’s before or after [the events of Sicario], if it’s five years—you have no clue. There is no reference at all to the first Sicario, so you don’t know when it happens… Sicario, the world isn’t that specific. It’s just these characters. And frankly we wanted audiences to experience the characters in real-time rather than having an exposition dump saying, ’Meanwhile in Sicario’…”
He admits to being skeptical about a need for another movie, but says it all boiled down to Taylor Sheridan's script and the story he crafted that may have some modern parallels...
“The script was amazing. Truly, I think you could argue that it was better than the first script. It’s a bigger movie; it is just as intense, just as disturbing, just as emotional. You’re going deeper into both Josh Brolin’s character and Benicio’s character, and I think people are going to be shocked by how relevant the movie is in this current environment, with our new president and what’s going on politically in that world...I have to say it’s all about Taylor’s script. You had people really skeptical at the studio, myself, the actors, everybody. And Taylor wrote a script and everyone was just like ‘Holy shit, this is great.’ It was all Taylor.”
He also has some encouraging words about incoming director Stefano Sollima who has the unenviable task of living up to Villeneuve's significant achievements...
“The aesthetic of that movie, our director Stefano Sollima is able to kind of extend that aesthetic and augment it. So if you love the first movie, I truly believe you’re going to love this movie if not more. There’s more bells and whistles and we go deeper with the characters, especially with Benicio’s character.”
My fears about Soldado went away after seeing Wind River. That was Sheridan's recent directorial debut and despite his inexperience the film was just as good as anything he's ever done, based largely on the screenplay's strength. Uwe Boll could probably make a Sheridan script watchable. Well, maybe not Uwe Boll.
