'The Equalizer 3' Wins Labor Day Weekend, 'Barbie' Ascends To Biggest Movie Of The Year

The Denzel Washington action vehicle, "The Equalizer 3," ended the summer on a high note with a significant box office win for the Oscar winner. Per figures from Deadline, the film is now on track for a $34.6 million opening for the three days. It's also looking at a $42.25 million gross for the extended four-day holiday weekend.

The "Barbie" movie reached new heights, becoming the most significant, highest-grossing movie of the year, surpassing "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," as we expected last week.

"The Equalizer 3" is the third installment of "The Equalizer" film franchise, starring Washington and directed by Antoine Fuqua. Fuqua and Washington collaborated for the first time for 2001's "Training Day," which netted Washington an Academy Award for Best Actor.

The film franchise is based on the 1980s television series of the same name, following a former CIA operative who seeks to remedy injustices by helping innocent people preyed upon by criminals. The third installment also reunites Washington with his 2004 "Man on Fire" co-star Dakota Fanning in a similarly-themed film.

"The Equalizer" films have been pretty consistent performers for Sony Pictures. They don't have gigantic budgets. The latest film has a reported budget of only about $70 million, which is small compared to most summer blockbusters released this year. The first two films in the franchise finished at just over $100 million domestically and just over $190 million worldwide. It will be interesting to see how "The Equalizer 3" performs due to its overseas settings and largely international cast.

The sequel also performed well without most of the stars being able to promote the film due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. It performed decently with critics, scoring 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience score of 95%. As an adult action thriller, the film is also poised to do decent business throughout September, which is typically a bit of a dumping ground month for significant releases. Following its robust Labor Day Weekend opening, "The Equalizer 3" looks like it will do strong business, similar, if not better, to the previous two films.

"Barbie" reached even more milestones in the last week. Over the weekend, it brought in another $10.2 million, breaking $600 million domestically. The film is now at $609 million domestically, which only continues to climb since it has not run out of box office steam yet. Deadline projects the film is looking at $13.1 million for the holiday weekend, bringing its total to about $612 million by the end of Monday (Sept. 4).

"Barbie" is now the biggest movie of the year domestically and worldwide at approximately $1.383 billion for its overseas total, surpassing the previous top film of the year, "The Super Mario Bros. Movie." It appears $1.5 billion worldwide is not out of reach, along with over $650 million for its domestic total. So it looks like "Barbie's" financial milestones are far from over before it leaves theaters.

Elsewhere, "Blue Beetle" came in third, drawing $7.1 million to bring its domestic total to $56 million domestically. With a four-day haul of $9.2 million, its domestic total will be $58.5 million. "Gran Turismo" massively slowed down in its second lap, following over 62% to bring in $6.5 million. The film will finish the holiday weekend with about $30 million domestically. What will help "Gran Turismo" is its strong international numbers, as the film has grossed $80 million worldwide, so at about a $60 million budget, it's likely the film will break even.

Rounding out the top five is Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," which has continued to be a strong performer in theaters. The film has a four-day haul of $7.5 million for a domestic total of $310.5 million. The film has now surpassed the worldwide total of Nolan's 2010 film "Inception" at $853 million worldwide (via BoxOfficeMojo). It is now the third highest-grossing movie of Nolan's career behind only "The Dark Knight Rises" at $1.081 billion and "The Dark Knight" at $1.006 billion. $1 billion is probably out of reach for "Oppenheimer," but $350 million domestically and $900 million worldwide look like definite possibilities.