Earlier last year someone decided that it was a legitimate idea to make a sequel to Gavin O'Connor's entertaining, but somewhat forgettable 2016 film "The Accountant." A light, breezy, but exceptionally well-filmed action no-brainer, the film made a decent $86M domestically on a $45M budget. If you don't remember the film at all, it starred Ben Affleck as an autistic, but brilliant numbers guy that worked as an accountant for some of the world's biggest crime syndicates. Oh, and he also happened to have a "very particular set of special skills" due to his father's constant persistence for rigorous martial arts training when he was a very young boy. Suffice to say, this was Ben Affleck's version of "Taken," but did it really merit a sequel?
Our answers as to why "The Accountant 2" was greenlit seem to have been answered. Just like "Taken," the film has found a larger audience on home video and has, somehow, become the most rented movie of 2017 [according to THR]. Yes, despite the availability of Amazon Prime and Netflix, audiences still went out of their way to rent the Affleck-actioneer in record numbers last year. According to an MPAA annual report, O'Connor's film even topped such stalwarts as "Moana" and "Wonder Woman" (Respectively #2 and #3) on their list of U.S. digital movie rentals.
This is no doubt a strange top rental to have for the year, but it seems that, despite its 52% Rotten Tomatoes score, strong word of mouth has made audiences take a major liking to "The Accountant." The fact that it wasn't bested by anything else during the entire year is an astonishing achievement that should be noted. Critics all but shunned the film upon release and the online film community barely spoke about it. And with all that going against it, "The Accountant" still managed to find a major audience on home video. This just shows how much of a divide there is between critics and audiences and how Ben Affleck is still a very bankable star in Hollywood. Bring on the sequel.