Fans of comic book movies have been waiting patiently during the pandemic for the next MCU project to be released, whether that be in theaters or on Disney+. While it was initially thought that Falcon and the Winter Soldier would be the series to kick off that corner of the cinematic universe, it now seems that WandaVision will be filling that spot.
Although fans of Anthony Mackie will have to wait a little longer than expected to see him suit up as The Falcon again, those who enjoy his work will certainly want to check out his performance in a thrilling new horror/sci-fi film called Synchronic. The movie deals with time travel in some intriguing ways, and while speaking with the directors, they revealed that a big influence on the way they implement the laws of time is the work of Alan Moore, including Jerusalem and Watchmen.
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have directed time-bending films before, with The Endless and Resolution both existing in the same cinematic universe. They talked with us about how those movies interconnect and the elements that tie the stories together.
To listen to our chat with the directors, click the podcast player below. Horror lovers can also find our exclusive interviews with legendary Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund and Tremors' Burt Gummer actor Michael Gross embedded along with the transcript.
Literary Joe (1m 19s): So I loved Synchronic, but can you tell me why the word always is spelled as "all ways"?
Aaron Moorhead (1m 25s): Yeah, actually, I'll give you a reason for that, and then a cool coincidence. The misspelling was because it used to be "anything" or "anywhere" or something like that. I think it was anything. And there was a weird spelling in that as well. And the idea was making it memorable and something you'd notice.
The movie also had a lot to do with infinite possibilities. That's how time moves. It's like you move up to the present, and everything expands into anything, literally, in all directions. And if I go way into it, into 4D space, it explodes into a whole different direction.
And actually, the weirdest coincidence, though, is that was always there. It was always going to be this misspelling of always. And we were rewriting a piece of the movie after some logistical stuff and some rehearsals and all of that in a coffee shop. And we're walking around New Orleans, and we look at across the street, and it was already in the script, and we see the All Ways Cafe spelled that way. We couldn't believe it. It was a total coincidence.
Literary Joe (2m 36s): Can you guys tell me how you came to Synchronic's title creatively?
Justin Benson (2m 52s): Yeah, there was always that title. Resolution was originally called Chronicle, The Endless had a few working titles, and then Synchronic was always Synchronic.
And where it started was that if you were a manufacturer or designer of synthetic analog drugs that you sell in smoke shops and head shops, wouldn't you want to leave in the word chronic somehow? And it's about the characters synching up. The definition of the word Synchronic, and I always get the definition wrong, but it's something related to a specific instance in time.
Aaron Moorhead (3m 45s): It's also a linguistics term, but weirdly, it somehow encapsulates the entire meaning of the movie.
Literary Joe (3m 52s): I was actually watching The Endless earlier, and I noticed that that film and Resolution seem to exist in the same universe. So I'm curious if Synchronic also kind of fits somewhere into that strange universe, but just following different laws of time loops?
Justin Benson (4m 20s): There are some pretty big tie-ins there. They are nowhere near as related as Resolution and The Endless. Spoiler alert: So when the chemist followed home, Steve from the head shop was in his closet and explained why he wants it back and what Synchronic is, and where it came from. He basically says that Synchronic was a synthetic analog created from a red weed that only grows in a particular part of the Southwest's deserts.
That's the red flower, and it was a synthetic of the red flowers that have grown in the area that The Endless and Resolution take place. And that flower, of course, being something that allows you to see the antagonist of that movie's manipulations of time loops. So it's kind of like if you were to combine something like DMT and whatever that red flower is, you might get Synchronic.
Synchronic specifically was heavily inspired by Alan Moore's The Watchmen, and more so, a lesser-known novel that came out a few years called Jerusalem. The book's whole premise is that there is no distinction between past, present, and future. So there's one town, North Hampton, 30 something stories are all taking place simultaneously. And yet what we perceive as being very different time periods like pre-Christian and Roman times all the way up to the present day.
So that was where a lot of that came from, but I really liked it that you pointed out that there is a strong similarity between what The Endless says about a color you can't see and how we treat time in Synchronic. That's so cool.
When New Orleans paramedics and longtime best friends Steve and Dennis are called to a series of bizarre and gruesome accidents, they chalk it up to a mysterious new drug found at the scene. But after Dennis' oldest daughter disappears, Steve stumbles upon a terrifying truth about the supposed psychedelic that will challenge everything he knows about reality -- and the flow of time itself.
Synchronic released in theaters on Friday.