Why wasn’t Emily Blunt’s “Sicario” character, FBI agent Kate Macer, brought back for its sequel, “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” which opened this weekend? Director Stefano Sollima said she was the moral compass for the film, which wasn’t his vision for “Soldado.”
“Emily Blunt is an amazing actress, but her role was sort of a moral guidance for the audience,” Sollima told Business Insider. “In ‘Soldado,’ we don’t have that. This is closer to my vision of storytelling. I prefer not to have a moral guidance for the audience.”
Sollima’s words somewhat echo what writer Taylor Sheridan told TheWrap two years ago while he was writing “Soldado,” saying that he couldn’t think of a reason to keep Macer in the sequel and that her story had already been fully told.
“Her arc was complete … I couldn’t figure out a way to write a character that would do her talent justice,” Sheridan said. “Look what she went through. It was a difficult role. Here I write this lead character and then I use her as a surrogate for the audience. I make her completely passive against her own will so the audience feels the same impotence that a lot of law enforcement officers feel, I drag her through hell, and betray her in the end. It was an arduous journey for the character, and for Emily. That character had arc.”
While “Sicario” earned critical acclaim when it was released in 2015, opinion is more divided on its sequel, with one of the issues splitting critics is the absence of Blunt’s Agent Macer. In her place are gun-toting, macho agents Matt Graver and Alejandro Gillick — played by Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro — who are sent to covertly kidnap a cartel boss’ daughter to get the cartels to turn on each other.
Their stories will continue in a third “Sicario” film — which Sollima says he will not direct — and producer Trent Luckinbill says that Blunt could come back for the threequel.
“I think Taylor certainly has some ideas about all of that, but we’re open to that world and certainly would love to bring Emily back,” Luckinbill told CinemaBlend. “We haven’t written the script yet, but yeah it would make a lot of sense. We’re all fans of the movie, we’ve all come to the same conclusion, which is ‘It would be great to see her again.’ So I think we’re striking up those conversations now.”