Emily Blunt Was Told ‘Sicario’ Wouldn’t Make Much Money Because She Was Cast in It
Emily Blunt became a bit of an action star after starring in films like Edge of Tomorrow and The Adjustment Bureau. But there was one action film she was cast in where she was thought to be a major detriment to the movie.
Emily Blunt was asked to be written off ‘Sicario’ so the film could succeed
Blunt starred in the 2015 feature Sicario directed by Dune filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. She played a young FBI agent in the action thriller, and had as much input in her character as the filmmaker did. Being she was playing a woman surrounded by very masculine characters, it was important for Blunt’s character to maintain her femininity. But at the same time, Blunt still wanted her character to exude the same kind of strength.
“I told him in the beginning, ‘She can’t be in this masculine world trying to act like a man.’ The appeal of playing the part was that in the beginning, you have a character who’s highly skilled but then disintegrates at an accelerated rate over the course of three days. It had to be a delicate balance,” Blunt once told Vulture.
Blunt expressed further enthusiasm joining a category of female actors who led their own action films.
“The parts are kind of limited,” Blunt added to The Independent. “Very often you’re seeing women as the damsels in distress in action films. Where a woman is at the forefront of the action, that’s a rare breed, a rare thing to see. More of an anomaly.”
But not everyone shared Blunt’s enthusiasm. It turned out that there were investors who refused to financially support the feature after the Quiet Place star’s casting. According to Hollywood, they insisted for Blunt’s character to be rewritten as a man for the sake of its box-office success. Villeneuve ignored the recommendation, but Blunt wasn’t very surprised by the request.
“The writer was approached by one financier who said, ‘If you make her a dude, we’ll up your budget.’ Welcome to Hollywood,” she said.
Why Emily Blunt wasn’t in ‘Sicario 2’
Despite how big of a role Blunt played in the original Sicario, neither she nor Villeneuve returned for its sequel. Day of Soldado would be filmed by Stefano Sollima, and written by Taylor Sheridan who also wrote the first film. In an interview with The Wrap, Sheridan asserted that not bringing Blunt back was a script decision he made. He simply couldn’t find a way to write Blunt’s character into the sequel.
“That was my decision, and at some point I’m going to have to talk to her about it,” Sheridan said. “Her arc was complete … I couldn’t figure out a way to write a character that would do her talent justice.”
Sheridan also felt that the character had been put through enough during her Sicario journey.
“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,” he added.
Still, he didn’t rule out the Jungle Cruise star returning if another feature was made.
“What do you do next? She moves to some little town and becomes a sheriff and then gets kidnapped and then we have Taken?” he said. “I had to tell the story that was true to this role, and I didn’t feel like I could create something with that character that would further that world that would do Emily’s character justice. That said, there could be room for Kate somewhere else down the road.”
