The Accountant (2016)
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 high-functioning autism who makes his living uncooking the books 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 the action sequences featuring Pencak silat, an Indonesian martial art.
Plot.
Christian Wolff is a young man diagnosed with autism. 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 stimulus that triggers him rather than avoiding it. In the present, 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. Chris 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 to assist Wolff as she discovered the issue.RELATED:
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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 he assigns her the task of finding Wolff’s real identity before King retires in a few months. She uses this information provided by King along with tax records to locate Wolff’s office.
Wolff 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 Wolff the rest of his contract money for the audit and tells him to leave.
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.
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.