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Box office report: Ben Affleck’s ‘The Accountant’ dominates with $24.7m

Comedy concert film ‘Kevin Hart: What Now?’ delivered half of ‘The Accountant’ total

Reuters October 17, 2016

Affleck portrays an autistic math savant and weapons expert in The Accountant. PHOTO: FILE

LOS ANGELES: Underlining Ben Affleck’s star power, The Accountant dominated cinemas with a solid $24.7 million opening weekend at 3,222 North American sites.

Sunday’s estimate came in significantly above expectations, which had ranged from $18 million to $20 million at the start of the weekend.

Comedy concert film Kevin Hart: What Now? delivered about half of The Accountant’s total with $12 million at 2,568 locations. But the debut of sci-fi adventure Max Steel was ignored by moviegoers with $2.1 million at 2,034 screens for a dismal $1,049 per-screen average.

Warner Bros.’ The Accountant took in $200,000 more than last weekend’s winner, The Girl on the Train, which opened with $24.5 million. The Emily Blunt thriller finished in a tie for second with Kevin Hart: What Now?

The Accountant carries a moderate $40 million price tag, with Affleck portraying an autistic math savant and weapons expert who cooks the books for criminal organisations. Gavin O’Connor directs from a script by Bill Dubuque. Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow also star. Prospects for holdover business are decent with an A CinemaScore, particularly with 86% of customers over 25.

The Accountant opened quietly in 10 international markets with $2.8 million from 1,190 screens, led by $755,000 at 109 sites in Taiwan. It will open next weekend in Brazil, Germany and Spain.

Warner-based Affleck has a strong track record in dramas with 2010’s The Town, which grossed $154 million worldwide, 2012’s Best Picture Oscar winner Argo, with $232 million worldwide, and 2014’s Gone Girl, with $369 million. His Prohibition-era crime drama Live by Night opens on Christmas and he’ll return as Batman in Justice League on Nov. 17, 2017.

Kevin Hart: What Now? is a look at the final performance of the comedian’s most recent tour, filmed in August, 2015, at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field -- and book-ended by James Bond-style spoof sequences in which Hart teams with Halle Berry as his loyal but dismissive associate. Leslie Small and Tim Story directed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2016.

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