THE EQUALIZER Director Antoine Fuqua Considering a Prequel Film with De-Aged Denzel Washington
The Equalizer 3 is being marketed as the final film in the action thriller franchise, but director Antoine Fuqua has been considering making a prequel film. Not only that, with how technology has progressed in recent years, he wants to tell the origin story with a de-aged Denzel Washington.
Fuqua told NME in a recent new interview: “I definitely thought about it a lot. Especially now with the new technology and the AI and all of that kind of stuff… Is there a story to be told about how [McCall] became this person — the younger version. I’ve had that conversation with [‘Equalizer’ screenwriter] Richard Wenk quite a bit.”
But, he hasn’t had that conversation with Washington yet! The director added: “I haven’t talked to Denzel about that yet. It’s all so fresh and new. I’m still watching [the technology]. I’ve watched Harrison Ford’s film and I know there’s other movies coming out. I think Sony has one coming out with Tom Hanks soon [Robert Zemeckis’ ‘Here’]. And I’m hearing the technology is getting better and better and better. So I’m kind of watching it to see where it goes.”
De-aging actors has been happening more and more these days. I still remember the de-aging of Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy! The technology has certainly come a long way since then and it’s just getting better and better. It’s pretty incredible what is being done. The de-aging of Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was pretty damn impressive.
When talking about the upcoming third movie, Fuqua said, “The first film was about [McCall] finding a purpose. And it’s very external, right? He’s helping people. The second one is more about making peace with his past. He’s betrayed by his friends and [his colleague] dies and his wife has passed away… And then this one is more of a moral dilemma because he’s a darker character… He’s struggling with the violence and brutality.”
In the film, “Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds a strange solace in serving justice on behalf of the oppressed. Finding himself surprisingly at home in Southern Italy, he discovers his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends’ protector by taking on the mafia.”
The Equalizer 3 premieres in theaters on September 1st.