Twenty-one years after Lord of War, Yuri Orlov is back, and this time the person trying to bring him down is family. Vertical dropped the first teaser for Lords of War on November 4, with Nicolas Cage returning as the arms dealer and Bill Skarsgård playing his son, Anton.
Per the outlets covering the trailer, the film opens January 22, 2027. Andrew Niccol, who wrote and directed the 2005 original, is back in both chairs.
What the teaser sets up
The official logline, as reported by MovieWeb, promises a "blood-soaked and bullet-riddled battle to the death." Yuri learns that Anton is building a private mercenary army to profit from America's conflicts in the Middle East and, in the logline's words, to destroy his father's legacy. Dark Horizons adds that the two end up rivals over just about everything, including the same women.
That's a neat flip. The first film was a cat-and-mouse story: Yuri running guns while Ethan Hawke's Interpol agent chased him. Here the pursuer is blood, and the business he's chasing is the one Yuri taught him by example. Whether the sequel has anything sharp to say about it, we can't tell from a teaser. MovieWeb calls the trailer more action-oriented than the original, which is a fair reason to stay curious rather than excited.
Who's in it
Cage and Skarsgård lead. Laura Harrier, Sylvia Hoeks and Greg Tarzan Davis round out the announced cast, though none of the outlets say who they're playing. Cage also produces, with Philippe Rousselet and Fabrice Gianfermi, who produced the original through Vendôme Pictures. Skarsgård is an executive producer, per Dark Horizons.
Andrew Niccol, who wrote and directed the 2005 Lord of War and returns for the sequel. Photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
The original's long shadow
Yuri was never a real person. He's a composite, drawn mainly from the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the man nicknamed the "Merchant of Death." That's why the first film worked as satire as much as thriller: it let a charming salesman narrate the machinery behind real wars. If the sequel keeps that voice, it has something. If it becomes a straight shoot-out, it's just another action movie with a famous name attached.
If you want to revisit the original before January, it's worth the rewatch. Lord of War (2005) on 4K Blu-ray (Affiliate)
Still unclear
The title shows up as both Lord of War and Lords of War in coverage, though the teaser and most reports use the plural. No runtime or rating has been announced, and nobody has said what Harrier, Hoeks and Davis play. For now this is a trailer, a date and a very good father-versus-son pitch.