Sony Pictures has released the first Sicario 2 trailer for the upcoming sequel Sicario 2: Soldado. The film finds Stefano Sollima (Gomorrah) filling the very big shoes left by director Denis Villeneuve on the first movie, but screenwriter Taylor Sheridan—who also wrote Hell or High Water in addition to the first Sicario—returned to pen the screenplay for a "more severe" sequel. This time around, the drug war has escalated to the point that the cartels are trafficking terrorists across the border, so Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro's characters are asked to intervene and, given the gravity of the situation, let off their leash.

I'll be honest, I really didn't have much interest in a Sicario sequel without Villeneuve or Emily Blunt, who wasn't included in the follow-up because Sheridan couldn't find an organic way to bring her character back. What I loved about Sicario was its richness, the fact that it really wasn't about the drug cartels at all, but about the U.S.'s foreign policy and how we respond to violence with more intense violence. It also worked wonderfully as a metaphor for the female experience in a man's world.

But this Sicario 2 trailer really got me. I can give Sheridan the benefit of the doubt, and this here looks to be a worthy follow-up that won't negate the thematic quality of the first movie. Indeed, Sheridan had this to say about the film when speaking with us previously:

“I think it’s just more severe, man. All the way around. I think the characters are more severe. I think the movie is more severe. I think it’s just much bigger. It’s just a bigger scope film. Like I said, when I saw it it was like Sicario felt like a small movie to me, even though it was a very intimate movie. I’ve always said I don’t understand why bigger movies can’t be just as intimate, if not more intimate. Why do they have to be less emotional? I think Soldado‘s a perfect example of that. I think it’s extremely emotional. I think it’s extremely tense and it deals with similar subject matters.”

Color me intrigued. Watch the first Sicario 2: Soldado trailer below via EW. The film also stars Catherine Keener and Matthew Modine and opens in theaters on June 29, 2018.