The Equalizer 3‘s box office opening projects to be the lowest the franchise has seen, according to recent projects and the film’s return in previews.
The Denzel Washington-led film — which released this week — made $3.8 million in previews at the box office (via Variety), and is now expected to make somewhere between $28 million and $30 million in its opening weekend. Those figures could grow from anywhere to $33 million through $40 million due to the film releasing ahead of Labor Day weekend.
Should those projections hold, The Equalizer 3 will have the smallest three-day opening of the franchise, falling just shy of the first film’s $34 million debut and The Equalizer 2’s $36 million launch.
Funnily enough, however, the film also projects to have the second-highest-grossing Labor Day weekend box office return of all time, beating out Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake, which earned $30 million. The number one spot is held by Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which brought in $94 million during its Labor Day weekend release.
What is The Equalizer 3 about?
The Equalizer 3 is once again being directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) from a screenplay written by Richard Wenk. The film also stars Dakota Fanning, David Denman, and Gaia Scodellaro. This marks Fanning’s second collaboration with Washington after working together in the Man on Fire movie two decades ago.
“Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds a strange solace in serving justice on behalf of the oppressed,” reads the synopsis for the action movie. “Finding himself surprisingly at home in Southern Italy, he discovers his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends’ protector by taking on the mafia.”
Producers are Fuqua, Washington, Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch, Clayton Townsend, Alex Siskin, Tony Eldrige, and Michael Sloan. It is executive produced by David Bloomfield, Tarak Ben Ammar, and Andy Mitchell.