DIS Walt Disney Co

LOS ANGELES—Ben Affleck is still a box-office draw, even without the bat suit.

His new thriller "The Accountant" opened to a chart-topping $24.7 million this weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. Gavin O'Connor directed the R-rated thriller, starring Mr. Affleck as an autistic mathematician. The film didn't play especially well with critics, but audiences, who were 58% male and 68% over the age of 35, gave it a promising "A" CinemaScore.

The film is the continuation of what has proved to be a long and fruitful partnership between Mr. Affleck and Warner Bros. Although "The Accountant," which cost a reported $40 million to produce, didn't quite match the $37.5 million opening of "Gone Girl," it is in the range of some of his other R-rated fall openings with the studio. "Argo," for example, debuted at $19.5 million in 2012, and "The Town," attracted $23.8 million in 2010.

"The Accountant" also far-surpassed Warner Bros.' early predictions for the film, which had it in the $15 million to $20 million range.

"We're in the Ben Affleck business, and we're proud of it. We've had a lot of movies with him and we have a lot of movies coming up with him," said Jeff Goldstein, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc. "Audiences just love him."

Mr. Affleck's mob drama "Live By Night," which he wrote, directed and stars in, opens on Christmas. He also has the studio's DC Comics films.

The weekend's other new star-driven project, "Kevin Hart: What Now?" narrowly took second place over the previous week's champ, "The Girl on the Train." The Kevin Hart concert film, which Universal Pictures distributed, took in $11.98 million. The comedian's 2013 concert film "Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain" opened to a similar $10 million in 2013.

"We love Kevin Hart, and we love our association with him. This is our fourth collaboration with him alone," said Nick Carpou, president of domestic distribution at Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal. "He is tireless in the way that he promotes his projects and the way that he's always working. It's really a pleasure to be part of it."

In third place, "The Girl on the Train" netted $11.975 million for Universal, bringing the film's domestic total to $46.6 million. With such a minuscule difference, the two Universal films could easily switch places in the box-office ranking when final numbers come in on Monday.

Holdovers "Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children" and "Deepwater Horizon" rounded out the top five, taking in $8.9 million and $6.4 million, respectively.

The weekend's other opener, the Mattel-inspired "Max Steel," bombed, attracting just $2.2 million. Open Road distributed the film starring Ben Winchell, which currently has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Overall, the year is still up 3.5%, but the fall season is down from last year, according to box-office tracker comScore.

"In the wake of the summer season, the fall always seems a little slow. This year is sort of typical in that way. We haven't had an October breakout hit like we had with 'Gravity' and 'The Martian,'" said Paul Dergarabedian, comScore's senior media analyst. So far, the fall's top-grossing film is "Sully," which has taken in $118.4 million to date.

"I'm thinking we're going to have a renaissance at the box office in a week or two and things could turn around," he added, pointing to coming films like "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back," "Doctor Strange" and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 16, 2016 21:35 ET (01:35 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.