Dakota Fanning and Denzel Washington will share the screen again for the first time since 2004 in the forthcoming The Equalizer 3. It comes as a bit of a surprise, but it’s also a great throwback to an earlier film. In 2004’s Man On Fire, Denzel played an ex-military man turned bodyguard who’s tasked with keeping an automaker’s daughter safe. Unfortunately, it turns out that the whole thing is an insurance scam and he ends up sticking his neck out to blow the lid off the whole thing and rescue her.

The Equalizer series follows an ex-U.S. Marine and CIA officer as he becomes tangled up with increasingly nefarious people. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond his own control, he’s pulled into life-or-death situations for the sake of those close to him. As for The Equalizer 3, very little is known about what the plot will look like. That being said, the director, Antoine Fuqua, has stated that he’d like for the film to take place internationally.

Washington has alternated big action movies with more serious projects for quite some time. In the meantime, he’s continued doing a wide variety of roles and even returned to the theater for a bit. That decision served him well, as his role as the titular character of The Tragedy of Macbeth in a 2021 adaptation was met with widespread critical acclaim.

Dakota Fanning has appeared in tons of movies ever since she first hit the big screen as a child star, and she’s never truly slowed down. She's also appeared in a few television shows, such as The Alienist and gen:LOCK, both of which are still currently airing. She also left Hollywood for a bit to go back to college, earning a women’s studies major from NYU.

Antoine Fuqua and Richard Wenk are both returning for the film, as director and writer respectively. Fuqua is well-known specifically for a few action films, while Wenk is known for writing movies like The Expendables 2 and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. He’s also writing for the upcoming Spider-Man spinoff film Kraven the Hunter.

Equalizer 3 is currently scheduled for release around September of 2023.

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