Josh Brolin Discusses The SICARIO Sequel, SOLDADO, Saying It's "Bigger" and "More Severe"

2015's Sicario was one of the best movies to come out that year, but I would have never assumed it needed a sequel. But writer Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water Wind River) wrote a script for a sequel anyway and titled it Soldado. Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro didn't delay to sign up for the follow-up, but director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049), who helmed the Sicario won't return for the sequel. Instead, Stefano Sollima (Gomorrah) stepped in to direct.

Collider recently spoke with Brolin about the release of his upcoming film Only the Brave, the actor expressed high praise for Soldado:

“You know what? That movie, honestly, I’ll just tell you really quick, when I first saw it I was like, ‘Okay, it’s a good movie and I think we need to trim some things. We need to do this, and this, and that to it.’ Everybody else had their notes and then when they saw the final cut it’s a really good movie. I’m really excited about it. I was actually surprised at how good it turned out.”

Brolin also pointed out that at first, he wasn’t sure how Sicario would turn out either:

“When I saw [Sicario], I said, ‘This is a really fucking good movie.’ When I finished the movie, I thought it was going to be OK. I had seen Denis’s movies. I knew he was a great director, but not everybody’s perfect and not everybody can put a good movie together no matter what their intentions are, but when I saw Sicario I didn’t know what happened. I was like, ‘I know we accomplished a good movie, but why don’t I remember this?’

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.”

Brolin the said audiences are in for something even more hardened with Soldado:

“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.”

While Soldado has finished shooting, we still have to wait a while to see it, Sony Pictures has it slated for release on June 29, 2018.