After adding preview numbers into the mix for their win last week, Sony got the more traditional one this week. Relying on the strength of Denzel Washington and a modestly successful franchise, all things being equal led to a hearty victory over the holiday weekend with the Antoine Fuqua-helmed revision of a television series putting up its best start to date. That said, by reportedly being the costliest of the bunch with its Italian setting, the final film in the series cannot retire too early if it is going to be a true win for the studio.
The Equalizer opened to a healthy $34.1 million at the end of September in 2014 and went on to gross $101.5 million domestic and another $90.8 million internationally. Its cost: $55 million. The Equalizer 2 tried the summer route at the end of July 2018. It opened to $36 million and finished with just over $102 million and $88 million internationally. How is that for equal? What wasn’t equal was its cost, which rose to $62 million. Both films were still marginally successful.
Now arrives The Equalizer 3 with a budget reported at $70 million and a four-day holiday haul of $42 million ($34.5 million estimated for the three-day). That is the second-best Labor Day weekend of all time, well behind Shang-Chi’s $94.6 million but decidedly ahead of Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween ($30.5 million) — appropriate, as reviews have described Denzel’s Robert McCall as a cross between a justice-seeker and a serial slasher.
Among your previous 11 September films to open between $30-35 million, six of them finished over $100 million, one of them being The Equalizer. What wasn’t one of them was another Denzel/Fuqua team-up on The Magnificent Seven, which finished with only $93 million despite being the highest opener on that list. Two of the others on the $100 million list were both of the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs films, and a third was Rush Hour from 25 years ago, the highest-grossing film on the list. Denzel has also not been as automatic overseas as he has been in North America, where he has had six $100 million grossers (including The Pelican Brief). Only Déjà Vu and American Gangster added over $100 million to his grosses overseas, and it’s going to take over $200 million for the third entry to get into profit — that’s a number neither of the previous films hit. The Equalizer 3 has made $26.1 million internationally so far.
In second place again is Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which became the 14th film in history to pass $600 million domestically on Friday. It added another $10.6 million over the weekend and $13 million through the holiday, bringing its total to $611.8 million. That officially puts it 13th on the all-time domestic list, passing Incredibles 2 with both The Last Jedi and Marvel’s The Avengers to fall by next week. The film is about $15 million behind Jurassic World’s pace, though it did best that film’s seventh weekend $9 million to $7.1 million. That is the film currently standing between Barbie and the all-time domestic top 10. Worldwide the film is at $1.38 billion, which is 15th all time and just $20 million behind Avengers: Age of Ultron for 14th place.
Warner Bros. also has the three slot this week with DC’s Blue Beetle, hanging in there with a $7.2 million third weekend and $9 million over the holiday. That gives it $58.3 million total. $6.4 million is what Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center had in its third weekend, and Beetle is outpacing it by a bit over $5 million, suggesting a final domestic gross around the $75 million range. That’s more than Shazam! Fury of the Gods and a lot closer to The Flash than anyone expected, not that it’s good news for either as Blue Beetle is only just passing $100 million worldwide.
Full Story via Rotten Tomatoes : Erik Childress
