It's not the first sequel to take a long gap after the first one. The sequels to James Cameron's Avatar and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City are two notable examples — Avatar: The Way of Water took 13 years; Sin City: A Dame to Kill For took 9. The number of years is not necessarily an indicator of its success.
So, when the makers of the Ben Affleck-starrer The Accountant — an action thriller in which the actor plays an autistic, methodical assassin-cum-accountant — brings out a sequel after nine years, the natural question is, 'Will it have any takers?'
Some of the film's early reviews after its premiere at this year's edition of the prestigious SXSW (South By South West) festival hint at a far superior sequel.
One of the reasons for the long gap is explained by a shifting of the property from Warner Bros to Artists Equity, the independent production company co-owned by Affleck and Matt Damon and an association with Amazon MGM, as explained by director Gavin O'Connor in an interview with ScreenRant.
“Some musical chairs were being played at Warner Brothers in regard to the regime changes. There was Covid, there were lockdowns, there was a strike… so it [had] some starts and stops,” he said, adding that Affleck and Damon facilitated the process of kickstarting the sequel. "Ben started his own studio with Matt [Damon]. I don't know all the details. I don’t know if Warner Brothers didn’t want to do a co-[finance] or co-studio [deal] … but they very generously allowed us to take the movie elsewhere. The first place we went was Amazon, and we formed a partnership with them.”
The other reason, according to a piece in Deadline, has to do with fully fleshing out the characters and story. "The story, really, is about the humanity of these people, and trying to connect them and align them with one another. And it was really a lot of fun,” said Affleck.
The film also sees Jon Bernthal's character from the first film getting a more prominent space this time around as the brother of Affleck's character Christian Wolff. “I think there’s a really strong foundation in the first film. You get to see them as kids [but] they don’t really get too much time together. Now, it’s just such a joy to do it, to do it with Ben.”
