Filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is a busy guy.  Last fall saw the release of his Hugh Jackman thriller Prisoners, his head-scratching/terrifying Enemy with Jake Gyllenhaal is in theaters now, and this morning we learned that he’ll be teaming up with Amy Adams on sci-fi thriller called Story of Your Life.  However, before he delves into sci-fi, he’ll first direct a thriller called Sicario starring Emily Blunt.  Variety reports that Blunt will lead the pic as an officer from Tuscon who travels across the border to Mexico with a pair of mercenaries in order to track down a drug lord.  That’s a promising premise with Villeneuve attached to direct, but what’s most exciting about the project is that it’s a female-led thriller with an incredibly talented actress in the lead role.

Hit the jump for more on Villeneuve’s next project and why it's an admirable choice for the director.

Per Variety, Villeneuve will shoot Sicario this summer, and then he’ll begin production on Story of Your Life in early 2015.  That’s certainly an ambitious—and interesting—pair of follow-ups, and I’m curious to see if one of them will be more studio-driven while the other more cerebral, like with Prisoners and Enemy, respectively.

It’s also nice to see Villeneuve using his clout to get two female-driven projects off the ground.  With massive successes like The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Frozen, hopefully studios are starting to be more conscious of the fact that 1.) female audiences are underserved and 2.) a strong female character is not a character that simply “kicks-ass” or acts like “one of the boys.”

Blunt will be seen this summer opposite Tom Cruise in the promising sci-fi actioner Edge of Tomorrow, and she also stars in Disney’s star-studded musical Into the Woods, which opens this Christmas.