The casting pieces are falling into place for The Equalizer, which is finally emerging, blinking, from the depths of Development Hell. Director Antoine Fuqua has rounded up a new name for the film, with **Oblivion’**s Melissa Leo set to step aboard.
Denzel Washington is, of course, playing the title character, a version of the Edward Woodward character Robert McCall. In the film, the retried intelligence officer quits a CIA-alike secret agency and decides to help the hopeless.
Leo will be playing Denzel’s former handler, who comes in handy (geddit?) when he goes to the aid of a prostitute (Chloe Moretz) and comes up against a nasty Russian mob enforcer (Marton Csokas).
Fuqua, who worked with Leo on** Olympus Has Fallen**, is preparing to shoot the movie starting next month in Boston. Leo, meanwhile, will next show up as Mamie Eisenhower in **The Butler **and in Prisoners** alongside Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal.