‘The Accountant 2’ Fights Past One Final Global Box Office Milestone

Having played in theaters worldwide for a full month, The Accountant 2 is now in the home stretch of its run. And a lot is on the line. Even if it doesn’t become profitable theatrically, which it probably won’t, the movie has the opportunity to save face by passing the coveted $100 million mark worldwide. It’s just $5 million shy at the last count, which means that it could pass the milestone as quickly as this weekend. Directed by Gavin O’Connor, the action sequel stars Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal in the lead roles.

The moment that The Accountant 2 drops on streaming, it’ll start leaking theaters. Two other recent films aimed at a similar, older male audience — A Working Man and The Amateur — also seem to have concluded their runs painfully short of the $100 million mark. The Accountant 2 is more expensive than them both, meaning that it absolutely needs to collect every last penny that it can while it’s still playing in theaters. The Amateur seems to have stalled at under $95 million, while A Working Man is stuck at $99 million.

With $60 million domestically and $95 million worldwide, The Accountant 2 is now within touching distance of what will likely be its final box office achievement. The movie cost a reported $80 million to produce, which means that it needed to make over $150 million worldwide to break even. But unlike the first film, which was distributed by Warner Bros., The Accountant 2 is distributed by Amazon MGM. Their films are designed for a home video audience; theatrical runs for Amazon projects are mainly marketing maneuvers. Case in point, last year’s Red One, which was a big hit with audiences but didn’t recover its massive $250 million reported budget in theaters.

‘The Accountant 2’ Was Embraced By Its Target Audience

The Accountant 2, A Working Man, and The Amateur‘s box office performances also serve as a rebuttal to what director Steven Soderbergh said about the commercial failure of Black Bag earlier this year. Despite being the top-rated film of his career, according to Rotten Tomatoes, the spy thriller wasn’t able to recover its reported budget of $50 million. Soderbergh suggested that mid-budget, star-driven studio movies no longer have a viable market. But the key difference between his movie and the three others is audience response. The Accountant 2 holds a 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes; A Working Man and The Amateur are in the same range. Black Bag, on the other hand, only has a 70% audience score. Had the movie been more popular in its target demographic, it might have emerged as a success as well. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.