Vengeance is mine, thy name is Denzel Washington with “The Equalizer 2”balancing the scales at the box office with $35.8 million, with rival sequel “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” coming in a close second with $34.38 million.
“The Equalizer 2” is another successful collaboration between Denzel and director Antonie Fuqua since the actor’s Oscar-winning performance as a corrupt cop in 2001’s “Training Day” opposite fellow Oscar-nominated co-star and “Magnificent Seven” member Ethan Hawke. “The Equalizer 2” (aka “The Sequelizer” because it’s Denzel’s first sequel in his four-decade career) is a follow-up to the 2014 hit with Denzel reprising his role as Robert McCall, a former covert operative with the tools and the skills to seek justice for the innocent, the helpless, the hopeless, and the powerless.
Based on the mid-1980s spy/detective CBS series from co-creator Michael Sloan, the role of McCall was originated by Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee Edward Woodward. Washington’s co-star Melissa Leo, who plays Susan Plummer, was a guest star on “The Equalizer” in the season one episode entitled “The Defector” as the daughter of a murdered agent who was under the protection of McCall, who went from the dirty business of the Agency to setting up his own business of helping people like her and a teenage boy who’s being harassed by a gang of bullies.
“The Equalizer 2” finds McCall on the rise as a dark knight: Batman without the mask and cape, seeking revenge against the people responsible for the death of his friend Susan. He also becomes a father figure to a boy named Miles, with whom he tried to steer away from becoming a criminal.