Given the loud noise “Live By Night” made when it tanked at the box office late last year, you might’ve forgotten that Ben Affleck had a considerable hit with the dumb but pretty fun, “The Accountant.” The R-rated, “John Wick“-esque action thriller did an impressive $86 million domestic, part of the film’s $155 million worldwide haul, which is not too shabby for a movie that cost $44 million. And while it’s not the usual kind of fare that Warner Bros. would sequelize, the studio thinks they’ve got something special here.
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Deadline reports that Affleck, director Gavin O’Connor, and screenwriter Bill Dubuque are all in talks for “The Accountant 2,” with hopes that Jon Bernthal will return to reprise his role as well (and we hope he’s back too, because Bernthal tends to always be great). There’s no word on what the plot will be, but it doesn’t really matter, because when the premise is centered around an autistic, forensic accountant for criminals who also happens to be a stone-cold killer, you can pretty much do anything. That said, the first movie sagged under a lot of backstory, so here’s hoping the followup is more in the “John Wick” vein of playing things lean and mean, and letting the bullets fly.
There’s no word yet on when this might roll, but presumably WB wants to carve out a spot in O’Connor’s increasingly busy schedule, which now includes brewing projects such as “The Green Hornet,” “Atlantic Wall,” and “Father Daughter Time.”