‘The Accountant 2’ adds up to fresh opportunity for Ben Affleck

Friday s sequel to The Accountant reunites Ben Affleck with Jon Berthnal and Cynthia Addai-Robinson from the original This time Affleck s autistic mathematical savant Christian Wolff must partner with his long estranged hired assassin brother Brax Bernthal and U S Treasury Deputy Director Marybeth Medina Addai-Robinson to expose and survive a deadly conspiracy and its corps of assassins With a third Accountant already in the works the question is What took so long Well after the first one it was thriving and I was really proud of it Affleck who also produced disclosed in a virtual press conference but it had a longer life in terms of the just real-life feedback that I get from people What movies they would mention when they come up to me So I definitely was aware Oh wow That movie seems to still being watched which I think is also a function of the fact that streaming really started to take off after this movie Also I love this character Gavin O Connor the original s director and I both very much were drawn to the idea of bringing Jon back We both felt there was a lot more to do O Connor and the original screenwriter Bill Dubuque Affleck explained spent a lot of time in the intervening years emerging and putting together in a quite typical of Gavin meticulous sufferer detail-oriented character-driven way what it could be Both were mindful of not wanting to repeat Not wanting to just Hey they like the first one Let s figure something out and do another one There was certain DNA that was central to preserve in a sequel O Connor offered After that it was a lot of left turns trying to refill the tank in a very different way I know we didn t want to recycle the same thing that we did in the first film So it was a matter of How do we start recreating the character in a way that is putting him on a different journey integrating Brax And we wished to bring Cynthia back We knew the key in the ignition was to kill someone because I requested it to be personal for both of these guys Bulk importantly we had these conversations about how I just yearned to make a movie that was fun and entertaining and put people in the seats where they would go to a movie theater the lights would come down and have a communal experience Where they can walk out of the theater and go Man that was a expletive ball That was a great time at the movies That s really what we were going for The Accountant opens in theaters Friday