What's it like working with Denzel Washington multiple times over the course of multiple decades? Antoine Fuqua knows.
Back in 2001, Fuqua directed Washington in Training Day — a film Washington would win a Best Actor Academy Award for. This was their first of five collaborations, including The Equalizer 3. In 2014, 13 years after Training Day, the two reunited for The Equalizer.
This franchise gave Washington the Liam Neeson turn that his career needed. He had done action before, but the role of Robert McCall gave him the type of badass role that few men in their 50s can take on. The first two films in the franchise were successful for Sony. They both grossed over $190 million apiece.
Working with Denzel
On September 1, The Equalizer 3 comes out. This is being billed as the final installment in the series, and given Washington's age of 68, that makes sense.
“We have a shorthand now,” Fuqua said of his relationship with Washington over the past couple of decades. “We don't have to have the long discussions about certain things. We kind of know each other really well.”
However, while The Equalizer 3 is seemingly the final installment in its franchise, the same cannot be said of Fuqua's working relationship with Washington.
“There's things we talk about,” Fuqua revealed about another Washington collaboration, perhaps one in a different genre, “but nothing specific yet.”
“[We've] sort of been focused on this one at the moment,” he said.
Boston to Italy
The Equalizer 3 takes Washington out of Boston and to Southern Italy. This change of pace was a welcomed one, both in front and behind the camera.
“Oh, it [was] a great experience,” Fuqua said. “The whole film does take place there. It's an amazing place to film. I loved it. The locations are incredible and the people were fantastic and [there's a] great history there of filmmaking in Italy.”
That said, there are a lot of close-quarters fights in Italy. Whether it's the narrow stairs that make you dizzy looking at them, and tiny restaurants where fights go down. You watch these sequences and can't help but wonder, How did they do this?
“Yeah, they're tight,” Fuqua acknowledged. “I mean, they're difficult, but it also helps with making the scene work, sometimes, when you embrace the restrictions.”
“They all have their complications,” he said in reference to scenes difficult to film, but he specifically noted that the ending of the film was hardest to film. “I'd say the ending was [difficult to shoot]. There's a lot of filming there — just a lot of pieces to make that work.”
The last ride
As for the future of the Equalizer series, Fuqua seems to be leaving it open-ended. Sure, The Equalizer 3 is being billed as the final chapter, but so was John Wick: Chapter 4. If the third installment is an overwhelming success, could Sony really turn down a chance to bring the band back together once more?
Even if they do, Fuqua doesn't have any ideas in mind. The Equalizer 3 had its own unique twist by putting Robert McCall in Italy. As for any potential fourth film, Fuqua, with a degree of calm that suggested he's being truthful, said that he doesn't “have anything in mind at the moment.”
However, Fuqua does have another project in mind. Last year, he directed the 10-episode Hulu series, Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers. He revealed exclusively to ClutchPoints that he is looking to do a Pittsburgh Steelers documentary. While we don't know if this would be a documentary film or series like Legacy, Fuqua assured ClutchPoints that this project would cover “All of it… from beginning to now.”
Antoine Fuqua grew up in Pittsburgh, so this project makes sense, especially after he served as an executive producer on 2016's Forever Brothers, a documentary about the 1971 World Series-winning Pittsburgh Pirates.
“I loved it,” he said of growing up in the Steel City. “It's a great town to grow up in, it's a humble town, [there are] solid people there and I'm a sports fan and I played sports all through[out] Pennsylvania and I went to school in West Virginia.”
He was able to film the Jake Gyllenhaal-led boxing drama, Southpaw, in Pittsburgh, but would “absolutely” love to return to the city that he grew up in for another project.
“Pittsburgh, it's a part of me. It's a part of what shaped me,” he concluded.
The Equalizer 3 follows Robert McCall, now in retirement in Southern Italy. He's growing used to the new lifestyle, but this is rudely interrupted when his community has run-ins with the Sicilian Mafia. It's up to him to put an end to it.
The Equalizer 3 will be released on September 1.
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