We learned back in September that Liongsgate and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan were planning on developing a sequel to Sicario, with director Denis Villeneuve somehow involved. The film is said to focus on Benicio Del Toro‘s Alejandro, which might seem odd, but as his character states in the film “I go where I’m sent”. An underlining hint that he’s been other places in the world other than Mexico, America, and potentially Columbia for the C.I.A.
The Mexican Cartels, not just the ones who killed his family might be his overall targets. We get the impression that C.I.A. has handed him plenty of assignments before this whole story went down. I could see them easily going back to different parts of Mexico, but there’s a completely different setting they could go with.
They have branched out and are also operating in Latin America and even as far as the Philippines. Vice actually has documented the rising use of Mexican-made shabu aka meth, a high-up member of a Mexican cartel was actually caught with a huge amount of meth and points out the large influence the cartel has on the country’s drug/crime problem. While going back to Mexico could be interesting a change of location to the Philippines could be a huge way to separate the two films visually. They also have seen drug money corruption make it’s way throughout their justice and political systems.
At the start of 2015, Mexican national Horacio Hernandez Herrera, allegedly third in command of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, was arrested in the Philippines’ capital, Manila, at the center of a 12 million peso ($255,000) drug bust.
Herrera’s arrest came as Philippine authorities confirmed that not only were Mexico’s cartels vying for a piece of the country’s rapidly growing drugs trade, but forming an alliance with Chinese syndicates to do so.
The Philippines drug of choice? Shabu: A local name for crystal meth, present in over 90 percent of the capital’s neighborhoods.
The U.S. and the Philippines have a strong relationship, the States being pegged as their closest ally in the world. It’s hard not to image them green-lighting C.I.A. driven operations in the country and leading to the return of Alejandro, at least in a fictional form like a movie. They’re considering bringing back the U.S. military, to help ease tension caused by China’s artificial islands being looked at as established military outposts and other land claims. There are fears that China could escalate things in the Pacific and the Philippines could be the target, giving the America plenty of reasons to move in and also try to clean-up the cartel problem, not to mention Islamic militants in the country who are killing and kidnapping.