The trailer for the new Ben Affleck movie The Accountant dropped last week and was very intriguing. Written by Bill Dubuque (The Judge) and directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior), The Accountant tells the story of a titular number-cruncher who has some kind of on-the-spectrum issues along with being–it seems–a huge sociopath who assassinates people who get in the way of his illicit dealings. Video editor Matt Caron rightly recognized that Affleck basically just played a murderous sociopath, known as the millionaire vigilante Bruce Wayne, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and put the two together.
There’s some surprising similarities that make the two movies link up together nicely, the first of which is their similarly blue-hued, dreary visual style. You can’t be an amoral murder machine in the bright sunshine. Another is the focus on the protagonist’s childhood, which we alllllll know is a big feature of every single Batman movie ever made in the whole wide world. And the third is, well, just the fact that, if we really look long and hard at him, Batman is a psycho who just happens to turn his destructive tendencies toward ridding the streets of Gotham of crime. The thing separating him from the character in The Accountant is drive, ambition, and endless funds. Both are intensely sad stories full of loss and misspent youth.
Oh! And also J.K. Simmons is in the movie and was just announced as being Commissioner Gordon in the Justice League movie. So that’s a similarity too.
If you want to see how closely Caron hewed to the original, we’ve included it below. Personally, every Batman trailer should be scored to a Radiohead song. Oddly fitting.
Let us know what you think of the Batccountant trailer in the comments below!
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Image: Warner Bros
Kyle Anderson is the associate editor for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter!