Taylor Sheridan refuses to make Sicario 3 and he has a great reason

If you’re still hoping that Taylor Sheridan will come back for Sicario 3, I have bad news: it’s never going to happen, and the writer-director has a good reason.

Out of all of Taylor Sheridan’s movies and TV shows, Yellowstone may be his most widely-watched and beloved, but he also wrote one of the best action movies of all time: 2015’s Sicario.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve, it followed an FBI agent as she joined a task force trying to stop drug trafficking across the US-Mexico border and bring down a cartel leader. It earned extraordinary acclaim, paving the way for Sicario: Day of the Soldado, a (weaker, but still underrated) sequel.

A third film has been in development since 2018, and while Sheridan has been attached to the project, he’s already explained why he isn’t interested in making it.

Taylor Sheridan doesn’t want to repeat himself with Sicario 3

Lionsgate

Taylor Sheridan considers Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Wind River to be a complete trilogy “examining the American frontier and the consequences of its settlement”, so he wants to focus on new projects (or Yellowstone spinoffs like The Madison).

Speaking to Screen Crush in 2017 (before the release of Sicario 2, which Sheridan wrote), he explained: “If I find another world – I don’t want to continue, I don’t want the trilogy to become a sextet [laughs].

“I don’t want to write eight of these same things; that’s going to become monotonous and derivative. But I feel that, for this purpose, highlighting these three regions and highlighting issues that are different, but the same in these regions, for me was a really interesting artistic endeavor and a bit of a social endeavor.”

Since then, Sheridan wrote Without Remorse and directed Those Who Wish Me Dead. He’s spent most of his time in TV; more specifically, he’s worked on Yellowstone, 1883, 1923 (which is returning for Season 2 soon), Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, Lionness, and Landman.

Paramount

Sicario 3 isn’t happening any time soon, but Sheridan isn’t to blame. Mission: Impossible’s Christopher McQuarrie was reportedly attached at one point, but “he’s not now, and I don’t know about Sheridan. I know him really well, but I don’t know if he’s onboard or not,” Josh Brolin told the Bingeworthy podcast.

Erica Lee, one of the producers on the threequel, told MovieWeb in late 2024: “We’re talking about it a lot, thinking about it and discussing it. I love those movies. Those are so close to my heart. And I think it’s an amazing franchise.

“You know, Denis [Villeneuve] set the bar really high, and they and all of our actors have gone on to do such amazing things and stuff, and Taylor has, like, the Taylor-verse, so I think we have to figure out what makes sense to get that band back together. I think the hope is to get all three actors back, in a perfect world.”

In the meantime, find out why Landman Season 2 needs to drop Sheridan’s most annoying habit and read more about Sheridan’s forgotten horror movie.