According to Josh Brolin, studios aren’t making films in the budget range of another Sicario follow-up, despite interest in a third entry remaining high.
Josh Brolin opened up about the prospect of us getting another Sicario film and to be blunt, he thinks the chances are unlikely. A script has been written and following a cracking first film and solid follow-up, audience interest is clearly out there.
However, Brolin says that the film is unlikely to happen, telling Variety that several of the talented filmmakers he’s worked with in the past are struggling to get the green light for projects that once upon a time, were the bread and butter of an annual theatrical slate.
“These people that I got to work with aren’t necessarily doing a lot of films now,” explains Brolin. “All these people that you’re talking about, Paul Thomas Anderson, it’s tough for him to do a film. Paul’s become a really close friend, and I loved working with him on Inherent Vice. I can’t wait to see what he does next. But I think he knows that these types of movies are not necessarily getting made so much anymore, $20-45 million dollar movies.”
Brolin would go on to point out what we could be missing out on due to this shift. “Would No Country [For Old Men] get made today? Would True Grit get made today? Would Sicario get made today? Sicario 3, we’ve been trying to get that right and get that going, but why hasn’t it happened? How long can you wait? A tough movie to get made even though the two made money, and people are asking about it all the time”, Brolin said.
The world would certainly be a poorer place without the films Brolin mentions above, and his comments make you wonder just how many other projects with great potential have fallen by the wayside in the last few years for being adult-skewing dramas in the low to mid budget range.
Sony put out the first two Sicario films, a studio who have stuck longer than most with backing those kinds of films, having done so after Lionsgate opted not to release Sicario 2: Day Of The Soldado in the US.
The film did good business on its home formats release too, but even so, it appears that now even Sony is unwilling to take a risk on a third film. Whilst not every creative out there is quite as negative as Brolin about the state of mid-budget cinema, it’s easy to miss the days when films like this were the staple that studios built their slates upon.
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