Not all heroes wear capes. Sometimes they’re bald, gun-toting, and entering their 70s. That surely will be the case for Denzel Washington when we see him in two more upcoming Equalizer films which, he revealed to Esquire, he plans on doing before it’s all said and done.
In the piece, told solely from Washington’s perspective, the legendary actor explains how he still has a few roles he’s planning to do, one being a return to vigilante Robert McCall. “I told them I would do another Equalizer, and we’re doing four and five. More people are happy about that—people love those daggone Equalizers.”
Yes, we do love those daggone Equalizer films. That’s why each of the three films in the franchise has averaged a hefty $190 million at the box office. Typically, when actors of Washington’s esteemed pedigree do these wildly successful but artistically unchallenging films, it’s to fund projects they actually want to make. Do you think Robert Downey Jr. spent a decade inside a red fake robot suit in hopes of winning an Oscar? Washington subscribed to this same thinking, until he realized the impact of films like The Equalizer.
“I’ll sometimes say to myself, ‘One’s for me, one’s for them.’ So, for example, Othello: We’re doing it on Broadway and then a movie. That’s for me. But I’ve come to realize that the Equalizer films are for me, too, because they’re for the people,” he explains. “They want me to go get the bad guys. ‘We can’t get them, so you go get them.’ And I say, ‘Okay, I’ll get them! Just wait right there. I’ll be right back!’”
Is it irrational to have such an emotional attachment to a movie character that you yearn for them to fight bad guys who don’t exist? Sure, somewhat. Is that attachment the core reason why putting moving images on screens is a multi-million dollar business in America? Absolutely! And Denzel understands that.
This revelation from Washington all but ensures that he’ll be a leading man in an action film in his 70s. It’s not unheard of. Heck, Charles Bronson was 72 years old and still playing a similar vigilante in another long-standing action film franchise when he starred in Death Wish V: The Face of Death. Antoine Fuqua, director of every Equalizer film, even said in 2023 that he’s tossed around the idea of using de-aging technology on Washington for an Equalizer origin story.
If these are possibly some of the final action films for Washington, who said he will scale back his output significantly, they should do anything and everything to make sure one of the greatest actors of all time goes out looking like a badass.