Taylor Sheridan Had To Fight For The Ending Of Sicario

Taylor Sheridan is in a position now where he can call the shots on just about anything he puts his name on. You'd think, then, that in his first big career-changing gig with Hollywood after leaving "Sons of Anarchy," where he was taking a risk behind the camera rather than in front of it, he'd be a little more cautious.

Instead, 2015's "Sicario" — which still stands as the best Sheridan movie he wrote but didn't direct — endured a fair amount of push and pull between Sheridan and the film's producers. This was particularly true when it came to the movie's ending, in which the hitman Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro) joins his target, Fausto Alarcon (Julio Cesar Cedillo) and his family, for their last meal. Apparently, had the movie's backers gotten their way, Alejandro would have proven to be a a less violent and more forgiving character than the one we'd already spent the rest of the film with.

Speaking to Uproxx in 2016, Sheridan recalled how the movie's alternate climax played out:

"It was a different violence. In the original, what Alejandro did was simply torture Fausto Alarcon in front of his family. Then, essentially, he told the wife to take the children far away. Raise them to be doctors or lawyers and not drug dealers so he doesn't have to come back and kill them." 

Of course, the ending we got was far more ruthless compared to that version.

It's always best to cover all your bases, which is why "Sicario" director Denis Villeneuve, Sheridan, and their collaborators wound up shooting both iterations of the climax (namely, one in which Gillick let the rest of Alarcon's family go, and one where he didn't). That's not to say this compromise came easily, though. "I wrote the re-write and then fought against it, and internally, it was a massive fight," Sheridan added. "The producers were arguing amongst themselves. Eventually, they shot both versions and tested it [with focus group audiences] to see which one people most responded to."

For better or for worse, it seems the audience reacted strongly to the more brutal ending. Hammering home the message of how heartless Gillick had become over the course of his quest for vengeance, the film concludes with the Sicario burning down the Alarcon family tree entirely (as opposed to clipping one of its branches). It's also the moment that cemented Alejandro as one of del Toro's best performances, and one that he would go on to reprise in the Sheridan-penned 2018 sequel "Sicario: Day of the Soldado." As for the future? "Sicario 3" reportedly remains a real possibility, which means del Toro's loner dressed in black may yet make his way back to the big screen.