The Accountant (2016 film)

The Accountant is a 2016 American action thriller film directed by Gavin O'Connor, written by Bill Dubuque and starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jeffrey Tambor, and John Lithgow. The storyline follows Christian Wolff, a certified public accountant with autism who makes his living (un-)'cooking the books' (i.e.: sanitizing the already fraudulent financial and accounting records) of criminal and terrorist organizations around the world that are experiencing internal embezzlement.

The Accountant premiered in Los Angeles on October 10, 2016, and was theatrically released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on October 14, 2016. Receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film grossed $155 million worldwide. It received praise for Affleck’s performance and the action sequences featuring pencak silat, an Indonesian martial art, but it was also criticized for its portrayal of autism.

A sequel to the film, with most of the cast and creative team returning and with Affleck and Matt Damon among the producers, is currently in development at Amazon MGM Studios.

Plot
A man who goes by the alias "Christian Wolff" is on the autism spectrum. His mother wants to send him to Harbor Neuroscience, a treatment center, but his father disagrees. Unable to handle Christian's needs, his mother abandons their family. His father begins training him and his brother Braxton in various martial arts while also encouraging Christian to acclimate himself to stimuli that trigger him rather than avoiding them.

Christian operates a small accounting office in Plainfield, Illinois, that serves as a front for his money laundering enterprise. His criminal clients contact him via an unnamed woman, who also organizes his business. Christian is hired to audit the firm Living Robotics after the company's CEO, Lamar Blackburn, and his sister Rita learn of accounting irregularities. They assign in-house accountant Dana Cummings, who discovered the issue, to assist Christian.

Meanwhile, Treasury Director Ray King meets with a data analyst named Marybeth Medina, who has a criminal record as a juvenile but failed to disclose this on her employment application. King warns Medina she faces prison if he chooses to reveal the information and assigns her the task of finding Christian's real identity before King retires in a few months. She uses this information provided by King along with tax records to locate Christian's office.

Christian reviews more than a decade of the company's financial records in one night and finds that $61 million has been embezzled. He informs Rita of the total but admits he does not know who the thief is. That night, Living Robotics CFO Ed Chilton is forced by a hitman to overdose on his insulin. The next day, Lamar pays Christian the rest of his contract money for the audit and tells him to leave.

Christian kills two hitmen who have been sent to kill him, learning from one that Dana has also been targeted. He arrives at her apartment in time to stop another team from killing her, then takes her to his storage unit, which contains an Airstream recreational vehicle filled with artwork and valuables that he has accepted as payment. After hiding Dana at an expensive hotel, he goes to confront Rita but finds her murdered, causing him to suspect Lamar is the thief.

King, Medina and a group of agents search Christian's home. After everyone else leaves, King tells Medina what he knows of Christian and reveals that he began getting tips from him. He asks Medina to take over when he retires and to continue accepting Christian's information. She refuses, unable to justify taking tips from a murderer like Christian. The phone in the empty house rings, and Medina answers. Christian's partner gives her a tip about Living Robotics.

Christian goes to Lamar's mansion, where a team of hitmen await. He fights his way inside but is shocked to find his brother Braxton is the one protecting Lamar. The brothers fight and then reconcile, and afterwards Lamar appears and tries to justify his actions. Christian kills Lamar and, before leaving, makes arrangements to meet up with Braxton in a week's time.

Another set of parents visit Harbor Neuroscience. They meet Justine, the daughter of the clinic's director, who is revealed to be Christian's partner. Medina accepts her new role as Christian's contact and speaks at a press conference on the Treasury investigation into Living Robotics. Dana receives a framed copy of Dogs Playing Poker but discovers an original Jackson Pollock painting hidden underneath it. In the final scene, Christian is shown driving on a country road with his Airstream in tow.

Casting
On November 12, 2014, Variety reported that Anna Kendrick was in early talks to co-star in the film, alongside Affleck. Later that day, J. K. Simmons was also announced as being in talks to join the cast. On November 14, 2014, Jon Bernthal was also in talks. On January 6, 2015, Variety reported that Cynthia Addai-Robinson was added to the cast. On January 14, 2015, Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow were added to the cast of the film.

Filming
Principal photography began on January 19, 2015, in Atlanta, Georgia. On March 16–20, filming was taking place at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Filming wrapped on April 2, 2015.

Fight choreography
The action sequences in the film featured the Indonesian martial art Pencak silat.

Marketing
On July 9, 2015, a graphic novelization of the film was published by Vertigo, a limited comic-book imprint owned by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film's official trailer was released on YouTube on May 12, 2016. It features the song "Everything In Its Right Place" by Radiohead.

Release
The film was released in the United States on October 14, 2016. Before that, Warner Bros. had scheduled it for January 29, 2016, and October 7, 2016. It held its European premiere in London on October 17, 2016.

Home media
The Accountant was released on Digital HD on December 27, 2016, and on Blu-ray and DVD on January 10, 2017. Between January and March 2017, the film sold 463,367 DVDs and 313,279	Blu-rays for a total of $19.2 million. In April 2018, the MPAA reported it was the top-rented film of 2017 for both disc and digital.

Box office
The Accountant grossed $86.3 million in the United States and Canada and $68.9 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $155.2 million, against a production budget of $44 million.

The Accountant was released alongside Max Steel and Kevin Hart: What Now?, and was expected to gross $20–25 million from 3,332 theaters in its opening weekend, although the studio was projecting a conservative $15 million opening. The film made $1.35 million from its Thursday-night previews, more than Affleck's Gone Girl ($1.2 million) in 2014. It grossed $9.1 million on its first day and $24.7 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office and was the second-highest debut for a thriller of Affleck's career, behind Gone Girl ($37.5 million). In its second weekend, the film grossed $13.6 million (a drop of 44.8%), finishing fourth at the box office.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 52% based on 282 reviews, with an average rating of 5.67/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "The Accountant writes off a committed performance from Ben Affleck, leaving viewers with a scattershot action thriller beset by an array of ill-advised deductions." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on reviews from 45 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it an 84% overall positive score and a 64% "definite recommend".

Vince Mancini of Uproxx gave the film a positive review, writing, "It's transparent in its attempt both to pimp a future franchise and give autistic kids their own superhero. There's a genuine sweetness to the latter that converts me on the former. Headshots, math problems, and pained social interactions? Sign me up. Of the two movies Ben Affleck has been in so far this year, The Accountant and Batman v Superman, The Accountant has by far the most franchise potential." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying: "Madness abounds in The Accountant, an intense, intricate, darkly amusing, and action-infused thriller that doesn't always add up, but who cares, it's BIG FUN."

Richard Brody of The New Yorker panned the film, stating: "This thrill-free thriller...piles up plotlines like an overbuilt house of cards that comes crashing down at the first well-earned guffaw of ridicule."

The film has also been called offensive to people with autism, in part because of its violence. Laurie Stephen, director of clinical services in Altadena, California, said "it's concerning that a movie features a character with autism who has guns and engages in this kind of aggression/violence".

Future
In June 2017, a sequel was announced to be in development, with Gavin O'Connor and Bill Dubuque returning in their respective roles as director and writer. Affleck was to return in the starring role. By February 2020, Affleck confirmed that developments were ongoing, with the studio having considered retroactively turning a separate work-script that they are developing into The Accountant 2. The actor additionally expressed interest in the potential for a television series.

In September 2021, Gavin O'Connor announced that the sequel had officially been green-lit, while a third film is also being written. The sequel will incorporate Jon Bernthal's character into the plot more than the original. By January 2024, the film had officially entered pre-production with principal photography scheduled to commence in March of the same year. In March 2024, Affleck, Bernthal, Simmons and Addai-Robinson were announced to be reprising their roles for the sequel, with Amazon MGM Studios acquiring the sequel's rights from Warner Bros. and Affleck also serving as a producer with Matt Damon under their Artists Equity banner alongside the original film's producers.