"If I pulled it off"— Gavin O'Connor shares the palpitations he had while making The Accountant 2 with a very different approach from its first part

The Accountant 2, the sequel to 2016's The Accountant, sees Gavin O'Connor return to the director's chair. In the upcoming action thriller film, Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, and J. K. Simmons reprise their roles.

Speaking to Screen Rant in an interview on February 17, 2025, Gavin O'Connor revealed that having the brothers Christian (Ben Affleck) and Braxton (Jon Bernthal) work together affected the movie's tone. The film’s engagement with the serious issue of human trafficking added yet another layer of complexity.

O'Connor told Screen Rant that making The Accountant 2 was challenging to the point that he doubted that the movie would work.

"It was challenging, and I honestly didn't know if I pulled it off until I put it up in front of an audience. But, fortunately, it's all working and I'm very pleased with it," he shared.

Furthermore, O'Connor explained that exploring Christian and Braxton's dynamic in the movie was a tough task. The director continued:

"I wanted to really go deeper with the brothers, make it a two-hander, and explore that relationship with Chris and Brax. That created some complications because it was a bit of a tonal tightwalk."

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Gavin O'Connor claimed that he wanted to make The Accountant 2 different from The Accountant

The Accountant follows the story of Christian Wolff, an autistic certified public accountant whose clients are some of the most dangerous criminals in the world. The Accountant 2 sees Christian and Braxton team up to solve a murder mystery upon being contacted by the treasury agent, Marybeth Medina. The closer they get to the truth, the more some of the most ruthless killers try to stop them.

In the aforementioned interview with Screen Rant, Gavin O'Connor revealed that he and writer Bill Dubuque intended to make the upcoming movie different from the first one.

"I had no interest in repeating what we did in the first movie. I wanted to build off the first one, but very much wanted to refresh the tank, do something very different, and create something very new," O'Connor said.

He continued:

"Bill and I very intentionally built the plot around human trafficking, and this was back in 2018, because I wanted to shine a light on that subject matter and explore that."

The Warrior director explained that the film is intentionally complex, crafted in a way that only Christian can unravel it, with the audience just slightly behind him. He assured fans, however, that the plot isn’t so complicated that it becomes confusing or alienating.

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Gavin O'Connor teased the return of a character in The Accountant 3

The Accountant 2 premiered at the South by Southwest Festival on March 8, 2025, and is scheduled to hit the theaters on April 25, 2025. In September 2021, Gavin O'Connor appeared for CinemaBlend's ReelBlend podcast and teased the plot for The Accountant 3.

In an interview with IndieWire on April 21, 2025, O'Connor discussed his plans for the third movie. He said:

"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's Dana Cummings does not appear in The Accountant 2, but O'Connor said that she is in talks to reprise her role in the third movie.

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The Accountant 2 will be in theaters from April 25, 2025.