As one of the most popular stars of the modern era, most people would be able to name countless Denzel Washington movies off the top of their heads if asked. That being said, many may struggle to remember that John Q. even existed, which is fair.
After all, the 2002 dramatic thriller hardly ranks among the upper echelons of Washington’s filmography, garnering a meager 23% score on Rotten Tomatoes, even if it did haul in $102 million at the box office on a $36 million budget because almost everything Denzel lends his name to ends up turning a decent-sized profit.
And yet, the Chinese remake of John Q. has just posted an impressive opening weekend on local shores, even if it’s highly unlikely that audiences were clamoring to see a new spin on a forgettable and formulaic effort that was first released close to 20 years ago.
Fireflies in the Sun debuted to a hefty $54 million, but that’s not even the strangest thing about it. Despite openly being a remake of John Q., it’s also been billed in China as a direct sequel to 2019’s Sheep Without a Shepherd, which was itself adapted from 2013’s Indian hit Drishyam, but there’s no direct correlation between the two projects.
