Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Equalizer extends Denzel’s streak
In 1977, a Swedish pop group embarked on its first world tour, while a young New York-born actor made his acting debut. Forty one years later, ABBA and Denzel Washington show few signs of slowing down. Washington’s The Equalizer 2 topped the box office over the weekend with $36 million, while the ABBA-based musical Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again was a close second at $35 million.
It’s yet another box office success for Washington, 63, whose last decade has consisted of an uninterrupted string of hits, including The Magnificent Seven, Flight and Safe House. The Equalizer 2, which was directed by Washington’s frequent collaborator Antoine Fuqua, more or less matched the opening weekend returns of its highly successful predecessor when adjusted for inflation, and received a topnotch A CinemaScore. The film’s gross should easily surpass its budget of $62 million in the coming weeks.
Universal’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again stars Lily James as a young Donna Sheridan (with brief scenes of Meryl Streep reprising that role) as well as Julie Walters, Amanda Seyfried, Cher and other big names. Despite dipping into ABBA’s lesserknown catalog, the film did even better than its predecessor, which made $27.7 million in 2008.24
Mamma Mia! and The Equalizer 2 excelled by courting extremely different audiences. According to CinemaScore exit polls, the audience for Mamma Mia! was 83 percent female and 68 percent white; The Equalizer 2 drew an audience that was 58 percent male and 53 percent Hispanic and black.
“It’s amazing how wellmatched these contenders are,” said comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “Both studios really did a great job of marketing each of these movies to their target audience.”
Blumhouse, the horror studio behind low-budget hits like Get Out and Happy Death Day, tallied another modest success with Unfriended: Dark Web. The found-footage film, which was made for about $1 million, depicts a group of friends who start using a laptop with access to the dark web, only to find they are being watched by the laptop’s original owners. The film made $3.6 million over the weekend, good for ninth place.
Eighth Grade, a critically adored teen movie directed by Bo Burnham, made $824,173 over the weekend as it continues its gradual rollout. The A24 film has made $1.2 million across two weeks and will expand wide on Aug. 3.
And yet there are still original films and documentaries making their own modest impact on the charts, including Blindspotting, a buddy comedy with some serious themes about race and class starring Tony-winner Daveed Diggs that opened in 14 theaters and made an estimated $332,500.
Sequels powered the top six spots at the domestic box office last weekend and eight out of the top 10 overall. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation came in third with about $23.8 million in its second weekend, Ant-Man and the Wasp took fourth place with $16.5 million in its third weekend, Incredibles 2 landed in fifth with about $12 million, Skyscraper came in sixth with about $11.4 million and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom came in seventh with about $11.3 million.
“People are enjoying these films,” Dergarabedian said. “It doesn’t matter if there’s a number after the title.”