The Denzel Washington-driven The Equalizer 3 earned the second-highest Labor Day opening at the box office, according to Variety, making $43.2 million over four days.
That number surpasses the 2007 Halloween remake’s $30 million but is far behind Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which raked in a whopping $94.6 million in 2021.
The Equalizer 3 brought in a three-day total of $34.5 million domestically. That is nearly the same as the three-day totals of the first two movies in the series. The original, which premiered in September 2014, took in $34 million; the 2018 sequel pulled in $36 million when it was released in July 2018.
Oddly enough, The Equalizer is the only series that Oscar winner Washington, a box office star for decades, has appeared in.
The Hollywood Reporter reported that due to the success of The Equalizer 3 and this summer’s crop of movies (including Barbie and Oppenheimer, which were released on the same day) the 2023 summer box office surpassed $4 billion. That’s the first time in the post-COVID 19 era that the industry accomplished such a feat.
It is predicted that the final 2023 summer numbers will be $4.087 billion, a 19 percent increase over the 2022, yet still 6 percent below the 2019 summer numbers.
“For the industry, after a three-year hiatus, to generate enough summer box office heat to again reach the $4B benchmark for the season is a remarkable achievement made even more interesting by the unexpected and often confounding path that led to this key milestone,” Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian said. “From Barbenheimer to Sound of Freedom and a host of other high-profile hits and somewhat inexplicable misses, the unpredictable nature of this all-important 18-week corridor was on full display. Equalizer 3 is taking us out on a high note.”
Now, Equalizer fans await to see if there will be yet another follow-up to Washington and director Antoine Fuqua settling scores and taking names.
