In “The Accountant 2,” the aforementioned eponymous Accountant (also known as Christian Wolff, played by Ben Affleck) goes on a speed dating event. At another point in “The Accountant 2,” he and his brother, Braxton (Jon Bernthal), take some time away from the plot of the movie to go to a honky tonk for no other reason than to, as Braxton puts it, “get drunk.” While there, the Accountant partakes in some line dancing to a cover of Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road” while wearing gaudy-looking sneakers.
When fans of the first “The Accountant” movie have asked me about “The Accountant 2,” I’ve brought up both of these scenes, and I have repeatedly been met with accusations that I am making this up. I am not.
Now, most directors are a little more precious with the details of future plans for a franchise. This is not how Gavin O’Connor operates — who, ahead, openly talks about what he wants the plot of the third “The Accountant” movie to be. (Or, more accurately, lack of plot.) And he’s pretty clear he wants Anna Kendrick to be part of a third adventure, who does not appear in the second installment. But it’s been such a strange road for this sequel already, so, sure, why not give us the details now?
The first installment came out a full nine years ago. It did pretty well at the box office, grossing $155 million. A sequel was in the works before, well, a lot of delays (a pandemic and Warner Bros. selling domestic rights among them). But in that time, “The Accountant” has played on cable on a never-ending loop, creating somewhat of a new cult following for a film that financially already did sort of okay.
Anyway, “The Accountant” is finally back. This time, Christian (aka the Accountant) is in a better place in life and, yes, going to speed dating events. When he learns from Agent Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) that something nefarious has happened to his pal Raymond King (J.K. Simmons), the two try to find out what happened, sending them down into a pretty dark world of human trafficking – with Christian eventually calling in his brother Braxton to help.
Ahead, O’Connor explains why, with such dark undertones in the plot, he really had to thread a needle to make this installment funnier. And he explains why, in the third movie, he basically wants to eschew the whole “complicated plot” aspect and just make it a road trip movie. No, seriously.
But, first, it took a minute before O’Connor understood my genuine enthusiasm that there’s now another “The Accountant” movie.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
IndieWire: I have great news, “The Accountant” is back.
Gavin O’Connor: It is?
Yes. I’m excited.
I appreciate you telling me that. Where is it back?
In theaters. The Accountant, he’s back.
In theaters, really? I love it. I’m going to go check it out.
If someone has asked me before I looked it up, I would have guessed “The Accountant” came out five or six years ago. Not nine.
Well, COVID had a lot to do with that.
Right, but I also think it’s because “The Accountant” is on cable every day. I think there’s a “The Accountant” channel.
Well, I didn’t know that. I mean, the movie did pretty good at the box office. I think better than the studio expected. It definitely found a second life in home entertainment, and I think that’s where a lot of people started to discover the movie.
There used to be fun, non-franchise action movies like “The Accountant” all the time. Though maybe it is a franchise now. How do you get people to make these?
Well, having Ben kind of helps to get a movie made. When we made the first movie, it wasn’t like we were making it thinking we were creating a franchise. It was in post where I can remember speaking to Lynette Howell, our producer, and Bill Dubuque, the writer, and saying, look, I feel there are three of these. I started thinking about what the second movie could be. I wanted Christian to find love.
This installment has a lot more humor. Did you know that then, too?
Here’s what I knew for the second film. We’re going to take Ray King and he’s going to be the ignition for the story. If Ray [is in trouble], and why, now it’s personal for Christion and it’s personal for Marybeth. And that’s the doorway into the second movie. I knew I wanted to deal with human trafficking, this is back in 2018, because it’s a subject matter I really care about and I wanted to shine a lantern on it. But, that being said, it also created a lot of problems tonally. It’s such a heavy subject matter and I really wanted this movie to be fun and I wanted it to be entertaining.
What I was hoping for, but you don’t know it until you do it, is to put these two bonker brothers together. Now these two brothers have to fix it. All their shit. All their backstory, their upbringing. Everything they’ve had problems with, I wanted them to try to fix it. But you’re dealing with Christian – who can be a bit of a brick wall at times – I thought we could mine some fun out of that. I was never trying to write funny stuff. A lot of the humor in the movie is a lot of improvisation…
Wait, so I never ask “was anything improvised?” because the answer is almost always no. But this time it was? What specifically?
I’ll give you an example. The speed dating scene…
Fantastic.
So, that scene, Bill wrote a very funny scene. So, we would do that. But I’d keep rolling. Ben knew the character so well I’m like, dude, let’s just improvise. In that scene, I think 90 percent of Ben’s responses are improvised.
Even the tax tips?
Yeah, the tax tips was a good one.
He’s a good accountant and he’s giving free tax advice and his dates were offput by this.
They want love, not tax tips. There were times in the movie I’d just sit with a two shot because Ben and Jon had such good rhythm with each other. I can cut it and create the rhythm, but they were doing it for me in the two shot! It was just how they played off each other. It was a dance. Credit goes to those guys.
Speaking of the speed dating scene… people have asked me about the movie. I mentioned The Accountant goes to a speed dating event then The Accountant goes line dancing at a honky tonk. People think I’m making stuff up.
Well, as I told Bill, I very much wanted to make a left turn. No right turns in this movie. The dancing scene has nothing to do with the plot of the movie at all. It’s just about the two brothers and we are going to go dancing. And I was like, I don’t give a fuck, that’s what I want to do and we’re going to go have fun. As long as the scene works, we can leave the plot. We don’t have to be so plot driven.
And Christian and Braxton get into a bar fight.
I shot the scene, I shot Ben’s coverage, and then I went to the other side and Ben improvised the line, “Oh, my brother is going to have a lot of fun.” And I’m like, you motherfucker, now you come up with that? So I came back around because I have to get the one line. That’s going in the movie.
Did Ben Affleck have to learn how to line dance or does he already know? I talked myself into the chance he might know … OK, from the look on your face, that’s a no.
Not a stitch.
I see.
We had a choreographer come in.
Did you film this? Will this be a Blu-ray extra?
We did film some of it, yes.
That’s exciting.
And Ben did all his dance rehearsals. He did. He was great about it.
Well, I enjoyed this scene.
These movies are so puzzle-driven. It’s frustrating and I have to do it. Because if it’s not a puzzle, you don’t need Christian to come in and figure it out. Bill and I have to create these dense plots, because otherwise you don’t need Christian. But it’s also like, these fucking plots, man.
It sounds like you’d much rather just make a hangout movie with Christian and Braxton. But you’re right, why would Christian be there?
You have to have the byzantine plot. I can tell you this! For the third one, I was telling Ben this morning, “I’m going to put you two, and maybe Anna Kendrick, in a pickup truck together and do a road picture and no plot at all.”
Anna Kendrick is coming back for the third movie?
I was speaking to her a couple weeks ago about it. She wants to do it, so I think I’m going to bring her back for the third. We need Christian to find love finally, you know? And I think I can mine a lot because Anna is so funny — I think we can have a lot of fun with the three of them.
This might be a weird statement, but this was a great t-shirt movie. Braxton has a cool Waylon Jennings t-shirt and Christian has a t-shirt with a rooster on it that says “awesome sauce.”
I said to my costume designer on day one don’t bring me plain fucking stuff. Whenever you have anything on a t-shirt you have to get them cleared and it’s always a problem. I said we have to have weird, odd t-shirts. That’s what’s great about working with Ben, he just says, “Tell me what you want me to wear.” Ben is hilarious. He doesn’t even look at his hair. He’ll put the t-shirt on and he’s ready to do the scene.
You’ve done three movies with him now. How does the relationship work since he’s also a director? Was that a concern? If he’s like, “I directed a movie that won Best Picture, I know what I’m doing,” not that I think he’d do that…
When we did the first movie… I was looking for an actor for the film. I never thought about Ben because he was doing Batman at the time and I knew that he was directing. I just didn’t think he’d be available. On a Saturday his agent texted me and said Ben loves the script and wants to talk to me. We spoke on Monday, that’s how fast it happened. To answer your question, before we hung up, I said, “I have to say one thing.” And I said, “Look, I think you’re a fucking great movie director and I love your films and I’m a really big fan. But I have to put this out there so we don’t have any problems: There’s only one director on the movie.”
Oh, so it is something you thought about.
Yeah, before we agreed to do the movie together, I asked him that question. And he said to me, “Gavin, I started out as an actor. I’m going to be there as an actor and that is it.” And that’s all I’ve ever gotten from him. Well, except on this movie because he’s a producer as well. I got the producing side of Ben … [chef’s kiss] the best. Once we got past the business side of it, it was, “I’ll see you on set.” I think for actors, if you play a character that’s a genius — Christian has this sort of one in a trillion mathematical brain –— I think you could easily try to show off a little bit as an actor playing a genius. He never did that. Everything was so subtle and simple.
And was always wearing a pair of sensible sneakers.
Oh, let me tell you, the shoes? That was all Ben. He texted me one day, “I found the shoes.” I went to his office and I’m like, “Really?” They’re hideous! But my brain went to that dancing scene. I’m going to have everybody in cowboy boots and all I have to do is land on those shoes.
The first “The Accountant” film has a weird arc. It’s a financial success, but then also developed a cult following. That’s hard to do.
Ben would text me sometimes, “I just left the grocery store. I can’t tell you how many people are like, ‘When are you going to bring Christian Wolff back?’” He said that’s the character he hears about more than anything he’s ever done.
And some directors get a little more precious about plans for a sequel and who is in them, but you’re openly talking about the plot of the third movie.
In my heart, I don’t want to do another puzzle movie because they’re so hard to do. Just to create this sort of convol— I don’t want to say convoluted. But this complex, byzantine puzzle plot. I just want to do something entirely different again. There will be certain people, oh, this movie is too different than the first one. I mean, yeah, why would I do the same thing over again. For me, as a storyteller, that’s so wildly uninteresting. So, I do want to do that, but we just have to sustain the story without doing a puzzle plot, which we’ll have to figure out.
“The Accountant 2” premiered at SXSW 2025. Amazon MGM will release it in theaters on Friday, April 25.
