Antoine Fuqua has become one of those Hollywood directors who can comfortably take on a wide range of genres, but there’s few that he excels at as much as the crime-thriller genre as seen by his 2001 movie Training Day, which teamed him with Denzel Washington, getting the actor an Oscar for his performance. Five years ago, Fuqua directed the smaller crime film Brooklyn’s Finest and he’s now back in the genre with The Equalizer, a new take on the ’80s CBS television show.
It reunites Fuqua with Denzel Washington, playing Robert McCall, an everyman working at a “Home Depot”-like superstore who encounters a number of individuals who need the kind of help that only McCall’s special powers of persuasion (often using brutal violence) can fulfill.
In the video interview below, Fuqua talks about reuniting with Denzel Washington after Training Day and how neither of them went into this movie thinking of it as a franchise, even though a sequel has already been greenlit. The director also talks about Washington’s co-stars Chloe Moretz, who plays a young prostitute who McCall helps, causing a domino effect when it gets him in trouble with the Russian mob, represented by Marton Csokas.
Fuqua also spoke to us about his next film Southpaw, a smaller boxing drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal, his planned remake of The Magnificent Seven with Denzel Washington which they hope to start shooting next year with a few other actors Fuqua wasn’t ready to reveal. Fuqua says he’s not worried about any competition with Quentin Tarantino’s similarly-titled Western The Hateful Eight. We also talk about how rap mogul Suge Knight’s recent shooting might affect the documentary Fuqua has been making.
The Equalizer opens for previews on Thursday night, September 25, and will play in standard and IMAX theaters. Look for our interesting interview with the film’s antagonist, Marton Csokas, later this week.
