The first trailer for Denzel Washington’s ‘The Equalizer 2’ is here and it looks banging

Denzel Washington is one of those actors who has achieved enough in life that he can afford to be selective about which projects he takes on.

The American, who won the Best Actor Oscar for Training Day in 2002, has featured in just six films since the start of 2011.

These include the Oscar-worthy – he earned Best Actor nominations for Flight, Fences and Roman J Israel, Esq. – and the slightly more popcorny projects that we love just as much.

The Equalizer falls into the latter category, and the 2014 film recouped its $73m budget nearly three times over.

Naturally, when something like that happens, there will be talk of a sequel. And said sequel now has an official release date and an intense trailer.

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The film sees Washington reprise his role as vigilante retiree Bob McCall, while Antoine Fuqua is back in the director’s chair.

Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman are also back after featuring in the original film, while Narcos star Pedro Pascal has joined the cast.

There’s also a role for Ashton Sanders, star of Moonlight, in his first feature film since the Best Picture winner.

While we knew the sort of thing to expect, having seen the original, this trailer promises us a great deal more in the way of fast-paced violence.

The Equalizer 2 was originally due to be released in 2017, but has - obviously - been pushed back and will now hit cinemas on 17 August this year.

(Images: Sony)