Atlanta-Filmed ‘The Accountant’ Comes in #1 at Weekend Box Office

The Atlanta-filmed The Accountant starring Ben Affleck came in first at the North American box office in its opening weekend. The action drama, which also stars Anna Kendrick as well as J.K. Simmons, brought in $24.7 million. The production budget was $44 million.

“This is a tremendous result. I was hoping we’d be opening up between $15 million and $20 million, but I thought it would be more like $16 million or $17 million,” Jeff Goldstein, Warner Domestic Distribution President, commented.

In the film, Affleck portrays an accountant/assassin with Asperger’s syndrome, who works for drug cartels and mob bosses. Affleck previously spoke about the role saying, “First, when I was researching it I thought, ‘Oh autism, it’s going to be such doom and gloom and in fact I met people with such incredible senses of humor and great world views and really self aware’. There’s a documentary about four guys who have Asperger’s who are stand-up comedians. It was something that I wanted to include to show the life and the wit and the spontaneity of the character.”

Coming in second with $11.9 million was Kevin Hart’s new film Kevin Hart: What Now?, and dropping to third in its second week was Emily Blunt’s The Girl on the Train which also brought in $11.9 million over the weekend.

Tim Burton’s Miss Perregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children fell to fourth, and topping out the top five was Mark Wahlberg’s Deepwater Horizon.

Releasing in theaters this week, October 21, 2016 are: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Keeping Up With The Jones, Ouija: Origin of Evil, and Boo! A Madea Halloween