Netflix's Answer to Taylor Sheridan's 'Sicario' Reportedly Makes Streaming History

Even though neither Sicario nor its sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, managed to hit the coveted $100 million mark at the worldwide box office, a third installment was recently confirmed. The key to the unlikely franchise's success is its popularity at home. Both Sicario and Sicario 2 have proven to be long-running hits on the PVOD market, and this has encouraged everybody involved to return for another installment. Crime remains a massively popular genre, and evidence in support of this claim can regularly be seen in streaming viewership data. For instance, Netflix's biggest international title this year happens to be a Sicario-style crime thriller set in the badlands of Mexico. The movie remains among the streamer's most-watched non-English films, having recently secured a spot on the top-10 list for the ninth week. This bodes well for the new Sicario film, which will enter production in 2027.

The new Sicario movie will reunite Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin, but will proceed without the creative involvement of writer Taylor Sheridan or directors Denis Villeneuve and Stefano Sollima, who worked on the first two films. Instead, Sicario 3 will be directed by Padraic McKinley and written by Steven Knight. McKinley recently made his feature film debut with the well-received Western drama The Weight, while the prolific Knight is working with Villeneuve on the hotly anticipated James Bond reboot. Collectively, Sicario and Sicario 2 have grossed more than $170 million at the worldwide box office, with the first movie having cemented itself as something of a genre classic.

Here's Where the Netflix Crime-Thriller Stands

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Sicario's influence is evident in Netflix's Facing El Chapo, which is based on the real story of two police officers who happen to pull over none other than the notorious drug lord Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera in a routine traffic stop after his escape from prison. According to Netflix, the movie has amassed 58 million views so far this year, emerging as the second-biggest Mexican title of all time, behind the 2025 crime-thriller Counterstrike. Set against a similar backdrop, Counterstrike accumulated around 69 million views and spent 12 weeks in the Netflix top-10. This record could be broken if Facing El Chapo continues its run; it added 1.3 million views to its total in its ninth week on the top-10 list. The movie needs to add around 4 million more views to break into Netflix's all-time top 10 list of non-English titles, which is currently rounded out by the German-language thriller Brick.