Denzel Washington
‘The Equalizer 2’, a follow-up to the 2014 original which features Denzel Washington, raced past ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ to claim the top spot at the USA Box office over the weekend.
The action sequel took an estimated $35.8m (£27.2m), inching past ‘Mamma Mia’s $34.4m (£26.1m). But these weren’t the only two sequels in town.
No fewer than eight of the top 10 films over the weekend were follow-ups, confirming that summer truly is sequel season for cinema.
Below is the weekend box office ranking movies:
- The Equalizer 2- $35.8 (£27.2m)
- Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again – $34.4m (£26.1m)
- Hotel Transylvania 3 – $23.2m (£17.6m)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp – $16.1m (£12.2m)
- Incredibles 2 – $11.5m (£8.74m)
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – $11m (£8.36m)
- Skyscraper – $10.96m (£8.3m)
- The First Purge – $5m (£3.8m)
- Unfriended: Dark Web – $3.5m (£2.7m)
- Sorry To Bother You – $2.8m (£2.1m)
‘Mamma Mia’ coming in second place is by no means a failure – the film opened in line with expectations.
Instead, the surprise was the success of ‘The Equalizer 2’ – with analysts putting it down to an ethnically diverse audience and keen interest among men.
“It was a surprise to come in at number one in an extremely competitive marketplace,” Adrian Smith, Sony’s head of domestic distribution, told Variety.
“It really speaks to the power of Denzel, without a doubt.”
Its success came in spite of a lukewarm response from critics, one of whom described the film as having a “plot that reads like middle-aged male fantasy”.