catherine-keener

Initial comments about the Sicario sequel, Soldado, have made this skeptic think it’s, if nothing else, an intriguing prospect — the rare contemporary sequel that could best its predecessor simply by going in other directions. Case in point: Deadline tell us the original film’s highlights, Josh Brolin (as Matt Graver) and Benicio Del Toro (as Alejandro Gillick), will be joined by Catherine Keener. As a CIA higher-up, her character attempts “to navigate the gray area that Gillick and Graver live in as the tale turns to what else is being smuggled across the border between Mexico and the U.S. in the tunnels used to move drugs and illegal immigrants” — terrorists, specifically, befitting this film’s particular focus on immigration.

Stefano Sollima, of the miniseries adaptation of Gomorrah, will direct from a script by the original film’s scribe, Taylor Sheridan, and follow Soldado with another sequel. But not in the strictest sense. As he said last June, the plan is for these entries to act as anthology pictures, and so this will be “a completely different story with just two of the characters that you met in Sicario.” The promise of “an incredible amount of huge action sequences” is intriguing, but sequences putting these three actors in the same room? Now we’re talking. Production begins in early November in New Mexico for a likely 2017 release.

Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger will headline and produce The Guest of Sanxingdui, a 3D, international co-production “that promotes China’s lost kingdom.” $200 million have already been invested in the project, which concerns “Sanxingdui ruins which are located in Guanghan City.” But because these sorts of projects aren’t just movies, he’ll also become a Sanxingdui spokesperson as part of his involvement.” The Chinese money runs deep. [CRI and The Daily Mail]

Production kicks off next March, and the film’s expected to arrive in 2019.

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