In the movie class of 2016, “The Accountant” was a wild-card.

It told an original story for adults, breaking from the family-friendly intellectual property derivatives that crowded the top of the box office charts. And though it resembled a durable breed of man-on-a-mission action thrillers, it had an absurdist, gleefully dorky twist — Ben Affleck playing a neurodivergent bookkeeper and consigliere to the criminal underworld.

Audiences responded. “The Accountant” outperformed expectations in theaters, earning $155.5 million globally (according to Box Office Mojo), and was the No. 1 most rented movie of 2017 (according to Comscore), ahead of “Moana,” “Wonder Woman” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”

Nine years and a change of studios later, a sequel, “The Accountant 2,” arrives on Friday, with Affleck and much of the original cast (Jon Bernthal, J.K. Simmons, Cynthia Addai-Robinson) returning, along with the director Gavin O’Connor and the screenwriter Bill Dubuque. In two conversations — one at South by Southwest in March, before the film’s premiere there, and another virtually earlier this month — Affleck, O’Connor and Dubuque discussed regaining the rights to the story, the definition of success and a potential idea for a third film.

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These are edited excerpts from the conversations.

Affleck, right, with Jon Bernthal in “The Accountant 2.”Credit…Amazon Studios

Bill, you wrote the script for the first “Accountant” independently — before an actor or a director was involved. Where did the main character, Christian Wolff, come from?

BILL DUBUQUE I know people who are on the spectrum, and I thought something like this might be interesting; I’ve always been interested in how the brain works. I thought we could take this character who has a certain set of skills, a certain set of vulnerabilities, and not make him a victim but put him in a situation that was entertaining and where you felt something for him.

The first film was the No. 1 most rented movie of 2017. What did you think when you saw it have that kind of afterlife?

BEN AFFLECK Since it came out, it’s been one of the likeliest movies that people mention when they come up to me. But for it to be ahead of all these PG-13 movies — what they call four-quadrant, or more broad movies — it’s just anomalous. I really think it’s a credit to the intelligence and the surprise of the story. It made people say, “Hey, you should see this, even if you might not typically watch action movies.” That’s how a movie kind of breaks out a little bit.

DUBUQUE I think people like to watch certain actors in certain roles. People want to see Steve McQueen do certain things. People want to see Harrison Ford in certain types of projects. I think with Ben, you can blend action with humanity. Some self-deprecation, some humor.

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“I really think it’s a credit to the intelligence and the surprise of the story,” Affleck said about the popularity of “The Accountant.”Credit…Kobe Wagstaff for The New York Times

Ben, how do you gauge success at this point in your career?

AFFLECK For me, it’s pretty simple, actually. I saw an early cut [of “The Accountant 2”] and I just really liked the movie. I almost cried. I was like, “This is amazing. You’ve done it.” Movies are subjective, of course. Some things that touch some people don’t touch others. But even if people walk out of the movie tonight, I don’t care. I love it. That’s not going to change depending on what somebody else says. The question is, “Did this move me? Am I proud to have been a part of this?” And in every category that’s personally meaningful to me, this movie’s already a success.

That sounds very secure! Especially working in Hollywood. Have you always felt that way?

AFFLECK No. And it’s been a very meaningful place for me to arrive at. I used to have this sense of, “If I get to this, or if I get to that, then I’ll feel good — then I’ll feel a sense of worth.” But the truth is, having been lucky enough to have experienced some of those hallmarks of success, it turns out those things actually don’t make you feel better. It doesn’t do it. If you don’t genuinely feel good about what you’re doing, it’s meaningless.

And the other thing is, at those times when I have made it more important what other people think — arriving at a certain box office level, say, or award recognition, or a Rotten Tomatoes number, whatever the metric may be — I was surrendering my own authority and storytelling sensibility. Yes, not everyone is going to like everything, and there is a popular sport of making fun of stuff — that’s the bargain we make for getting it out there. But to maintain your own sanity and integrity artistically, you have to have your own standards. As I’ve gotten to that place, it’s made me feel a lot more comfortable and a lot more at ease.

The first movie came out nine years ago from Warner Bros. The sequel is being put out by Amazon MGM Studios. What was the journey to get to there?

AFFLECK There were a few different things. Warner Bros. was exploring television versions, which is a more valuable way to capitalize because television is ongoing. They did that with Bradley’s [Cooper] movie “Limitless.” “Hey, this was successful. We can mine this for a longer time.”

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GAVIN O’CONNOR There was also some musical chairs there with regime changes. And then there was Covid and lockdowns and there was a strike. So a lot of things. But then Ben started his own studio, Artists Equity, which was a light in the shadows.

AFFLECK We were able to step in and construct a partnership between these groups [Warner Bros., Artists Equity and Amazon MGM Studios] that worked and would allow Gavin the room to make the movie that he wanted to make. But it’s a credit to Warner’s that we were able to find a new partner.

You kept the same creative team behind the scenes, which feels increasingly rare for sequels.

O’CONNOR The idea of even bringing on another writer was never going to happen. This all came out of the laboratory of Bill’s brain, and we wanted that continuity.

AFFLECK I don’t know that I would’ve been thrilled or comfortable to do this otherwise.

DUBUQUE I think I’m the only writer in Hollywood who has the patience to go through the script with Gavin line by line, word by word, a hundred times.

AFFLECK That may be true. Although Jon and I must get credit, too. He did the same thing with us.

DUBUQUE He has to make sure that Bernthal doesn’t change every line of dialogue.

You guys gave him a much bigger role in this movie. It’s effectively a two-hander.

O’CONNOR We wanted Ben to have someone to play off of — the first movie, he was really solo. And we thought there was a lot of drama and comedy between these two guys.

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DUBUQUE It was low-hanging fruit. Bernthal was so good in the first one, and you got a sense of their dynamic. We just knew there was something rich there to mine.

There are also a lot more jokes. The first movie had funny moments, but I wouldn’t have called it a comedy.

O’CONNOR Bill just writes really funny dialogue.

Gavin O’Connor, the director of both “Accountant” movies.Credit…Kobe Wagstaff for The New York Times

DUBUQUE Gavin and I would look at the scenes and keep thinking about different ways to amuse ourselves. “How about this? Maybe a little twist on that.” To me, that’s much more satisfying than writing action. I get to the action part of writing a movie and it’s like, call the fight choreographers, let them figure it out. And they do. They do a great job.

Ben, you have a big scene in the movie where you line dance at a honky-tonk bar. How much line dancing experience did you have?

AFFLECK You saw my virgin voyage — I lost my line dancing virginity right there on camera. It was just such a great idea in the script. Christian wants to impress a girl and he notices that line dancing functions on a sequence — it has steps which are repeatable and fall into a pattern — whereas just dancing at a club is improvisatory and something he would not be well-suited to. But it took an embarrassingly long amount of time for me to memorize. It doesn’t come very naturally to me and the way my body moves. Thankfully, I had two very patient women who helped me. And Gavin’s photography and editing were quite forgiving.

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Are there plans for a third? What can you tell me?

AFFLECK That’s a question I want to ask Bill and Gavin. I’m just waiting for another great script.

O’CONNOR Bill and I have had some preliminary conversations. I am personally running from another puzzle movie, which we’ve done twice now. One thing we’ve talked about is the idea of bringing Anna Kendrick [who plays Christian’s love interest in the first movie] back. Maybe Christian can finally get the love that he deserves.

AFFLECK We’re hoping she still likes us.

O’CONNOR Actually, Ben, she and I have been texting. She said she’s a hundred percent in if we want.

AFFLECK Oh, beautiful. Then it’s really down to you guys to mess it up.