Sony offered up the first footage from “The Equalizer 3” as part of their CinemaCon presentation. It’s the first and only franchise for old-school movie star Denzel Washington. It’s an unapologetic IP cash-in (“The Equalizer” aired on CBS from 1985 to 1989) where the actual star+concept hook – Washington as essentially “Righteous Revenger Man” – is a bigger selling point than the IP. Washington remains a butts-in-seats draw partially because he never allowed himself to be defined by IP or marquee characters. Like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sandra Bullock, the actor *is* the franchise.
Tom Rothman noted at the start of this presentation that many of his competitors believe that the movie star is no more, a notion that Rothman hopes to prove is entirely wrong. Before we even got the footage, Denzel Washington was presented with the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award by frequent collaborator Antoine Fuqua. This was followed by a sizzle reel of Washington’s many, many rousing onscreen moments.
Washington came on stage to a standing ovation and gave a brief but boisterous acceptance speech, where he intoned that “We would be nothing without you,” referring to the theatrical executives and employees in the audience. Dakota Fanning also took the stage which further pushed the notion that “The Equalizer 3” is a soft legacy sequel to “Man on Fire.”
The “Equalizer 3” trailer began with bad guys strolling through a bloodbath before being confronted by our anti-hero who gives them five seconds to decide their fate. The man has retired from equalizing and living peacefully in Italy. He’s understanding real peace and starting to believe that it’s where it’s supposed to be. Alas, a mafia-placed car bomb and children being menaced put the man back on track to kill the hell of bad guys. The climactic violence is intercut with Washington jokingly conversing with Dakota Fanning.
A third “Equalizer” movie should itself be enough of a draw. “The Equalizer 2” earned grosses ($190 million in 2018) almost identical to “The Equalizer” ($193 million in 2014) despite opening in the middle of a macho-man action summer season alongside “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” and “The Meg.” This third film debuts September 23 of this year, closer to the late-September debut of the first Antoine Fuqua-directed film.
The pairing of Washington and Fanning makes this an unofficial sequel/reunion/etc. to “Man on Fire,” the 2004 favorite that stands as a relative pinnacle of Washington’s hardcore action movies. Heck, Tony Scott’s “old man out for a righteous kill to protect or avenge an innocent white girl from scary foreigners” flick opened five years before Liam Neeson’s “Taken” unofficially made that a sub-genre.
