The Equalizer 3 Ends The Summer Box Office On A High With $42 Million Opening Weekend

Update 09/04/2023: With Sunday's box office numbers in, "The Equalizer 3" has grossed $34.5 million over the three-day weekend and $42 million over the full Labor Day weekend, including Monday. The headline has been updated to reflect this. Original article follows.

Denzel Washington has managed to avoid sequels and franchises for most of his career, but there is one exception: "The Equalizer," a movie reboot of the 1980s TV series that has since become Washington's first movie trilogy. All three movies were directed by Antoine Fuqua, whose working relationship with Washington dates back to 2001's "Training Day." Now, the early box office numbers for "The Equalizer 3" — ostensibly the final outing for Washington's Robert McCall — are in, and they're ending the 2023 summer box office on a high note.

More specifically, they've pushed the box office to its first $4 billion summer since the pandemic began, per The Hollywood Reporter. The movie grossed $13.1 million on its opening day and is expected to make between $42 million and $43.5 million over the Labor Day weekend, with a three-day total of $35 million. It's outperforming expectations from earlier in the week, when Variety predicted it would hit a maximum of $40 million over the four-day weekend, and make $28-30 million Friday-to-Sunday.

These revised weekend estimates mark the "Equalizer" movies as one of the most consistent franchises of all time at the box office: the first had an opening weekend of $34.1 million; the second, $36 million. With a production budget of $70 million, "The Equalizer 3" is already comfortably on the road to success. It'll also be able to boast the second-best ever Labor Day opening, behind 2021 Marvel movie "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings."

It's a hit among audiences too, scoring a coveted A grade from CinemaScore, based on audience polling. From critics, "The Equalizer 3" has a score of 76 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, as of this writing. Black people in particular are showing up for the movie, making up 31 percent of the opening night audience (per THR).

Movie franchises where a middle-aged actor plays a retired ass-kicker who comes out of retirement to kick some more ass have formed their own dependably profitable niche at the box office. The first "Equalizer" movie hit theaters the same year that Liam Neeson's Brian Mills took his final bow in "Taken 3," which was also the year that Keanu Reeves made his debut as John Wick. This year has already seen "John Wick: Chapter 4" take the box office by storm with a $73.8 million opening weekend and a final worldwide total of $426.5 million. 

The fourth "John Wick" and the third "Equalizer" have something else in common: a painful experience caused by Europe's love of stairs. Speaking to Empire magazine earlier this year, Washington and Fuqua were asked about their experiences filming in Italy. The main thing that stuck with them?

Antoine Fuqua: It's all steps.
Washington: I'm rubbing my knees now, just talking about it. You should have come to the set to interview us, me and Antoine trying to go down the steps sideways: stone steps with bad knees.
Fuqua: Seven hundred steps.
Washington: Seven hundred steps! Downhill.
Fuqua: There was a lot of ice going on.
Washington: Oh man, a lot of ice.

"John Wick: Chapter 4" was supposedly Reeves' final outing as John Wick, just as "The Equalizer 3" is theoretically Washington's last appearance at Robert McCall. But perhaps they can one day team up, Avengers-style, to take those stairs down once and for all.