Summary

• Jason Statham's Levon's Trade could be the start of a new action franchise.
• The gritty vigilante story in Levon's Trade mirrors themes from Denzel Washington's Equalizer franchise.
• With potential for sequels and strong audience interest, Levon's Trade could fill the gap left by the conclusion of the Equalizer movie series.

Jason Statham's upcoming action thriller Levon's Trade could fill in the gap left behind by the end of a certain Denzel Washington franchise. The number of Jason Statham action franchises appears to be growing year by year. He's a regular among the ensemble of The Fast and the Furious saga and fronts his own series like The Meg or The Expendables. The surprise success of David Ayer's The Beekeeper means that a potential Beekeeper 2 is also a strong possibility.

Ayer and Statham enjoyed working together so much they're reuniting for the upcoming novel adaptation Levon's Trade. This casts Statham as the titular character, a retired special forces operative hired by his concerned boss to find his missing daughter. Unlike the more tongue-in-cheek antics of The Beekeeper, Levon's Trade is a gritty vigilante story where the deeper the title character digs, the messier things get. In addition to Statham and Ayer, the movie's screenplay was also penned by none other than Sylvester Stallone.

Jason Statham's Levon's Trade Shares DNA With The Equalizer

The Equalizer fans will get a lot out of Levon's Trade

While Levon Cade might be the sort of special forces badass Statham has played many times before, in the books, Cade is also a softspoken gent. His focus is on raising his daughter and while he can handle himself in a fight, he never goes looking for them. The opening chapter of Levon's Trade sees him beat up two criminals attempting to extort one of his workers at a construction site, and after disarming them, Cade then mails their firearms to the police, just to get them out of circulation.

Sylvester Stallone also penned the screenplay for the Jason Statham movie Homefront, released in 2013.

In many ways, Levon's Trade and Denzel's Washington's The Equalizer movies share much in common. They're both fronted by well-meaning characters with dark pasts, who are trying to do the right thing in bad circumstances. The big difference between Cade and Denzel's McCall is that the former has a young daughter too, and undertakes the job to rescue his boss' daughter as he needs money for a bitter custody battle with his father-in-law.

Just like in the first Equalizer movie, Cade's mission pits him against a Russian gang, who soon begin hunting him. Just because Cade is fundamentally a good guy, that doesn't mean he can't transform into a ruthless killer when needed. He kills and tortures multiple people throughout the story, and is adept at improvising his way out of trouble. In contrast to McCall, Cade has no issue using guns when necessary either.

Levon's Trade Has Huge Franchise Potential

Jason Statham can make up for non-starting franchises like Parker or Broker

If Ayer and Statham can recapture the magic of their first collaboration The Beekeeper, audiences could be seeing a lot more from Levon Cade in the near future.

Levon's Trade isn't the first time Statham has attempted to build a franchise around a book series. In the past, he's fronted films like 2013's Parker - based on the novels by the late, great Donald E. Westlake - or Homefront, which adapted one of the Phil Broker books. Neither film led to a sequel, though Statham did eventually land a successful franchise based on a book series with The Meg. Levon's Trade could be his next action franchise, with author Chuck Dixon's Levon Cade series having run for 10 books and counting.

That means there is a wealth of material for a potential Levon's Trade sequel to pull from - assuming the original hits, of course. While the sort of modestly budgeted, R-rated action movies Statham made his name on waned during the 2010s, the success of The Beekeeper proves there is a willing audience for those types of movies in theaters. If Ayer and Statham can recapture the magic of their first collaboration, audiences could be seeing a lot more from Levon Cade in the near future.

Levon's Trade Can Fill The Gap Left By The Equalizer Franchise Ending

That's assuming Denzel Washington's McCall truly stays retired

The Equalizer 3's ending sees McCall seemingly retire from his equalizing ways, and by all accounts, the sequel was designed to close out his story. Considering the film was another robust hit, the studio will no doubt test the waters of a possible Equalizer 4 with Washington, but another installment is far from a given. Levon's Trade could be the film to fill in the niche left behind by the end of the Equalizer series.

The big selling point of The Equalizer was seeing an actor of Washington's caliber taking on an action movie, and he brought a lot of depth and power to what could have been a generic revenge flick. The movies were never going to compete with the likes of Marvel in terms of box office, but there will always be a space for action films aimed at adults. That's why what made Washington's saga so consistently profitable, but now they've ended, genre fans will need to look elsewhere. If Levon's Trade can capture the same blend of character and action, it could prove a worthy successor.

Source: The Numbers