Synchronic Budget

What Is the Budget of Synchronic (2020)?

Synchronic (2020), written and directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, was produced on an estimated budget of approximately $3,000,000. The figure has not been formally disclosed by XYZ Films or the financing consortium, but the contained New Orleans-anchored production model, the small core cast led by Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan, and the independent-feature scale of the late-2018 location shoot all support a figure in the low-single-digit-millions range typical of festival-acquired contained-science-fiction-horror titles.

The film operated as Benson and Moorhead's most commercially scaled production to that point in their feature filmography after Resolution (2012), Spring (2014), and The Endless (2017), with Anthony Mackie's above-the-title profile representing a substantial scale-up for the directing duo's production model.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The estimated $3,000,000 budget covered a contained New Orleans-set science-fiction-horror feature built around a two-handler buddy core and a sustained time-displacement narrative:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Anthony Mackie, in the post-Falcon and pre-Captain America transition phase of his Marvel-and-independent career, anchored the production in the lead role of Steve, the New Orleans paramedic. Jamie Dornan played his fellow paramedic Dennis. Ally Ioannides, Katie Aselton, and Bill Oberst Jr. filled out the small supporting cast. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, writing and directing together, absorbed below-market combined fees relative to studio equivalents.
• New Orleans Location Production: Principal photography took place across New Orleans, Louisiana in late 2018, exploiting the Louisiana Motion Picture Production Tax Credit for substantial production-cost offset. The screenplay's engagement with New Orleans-specific historical timelines including French-colonial, antebellum, and Civil-War-era period sequences required dedicated location and dressing work across the geographic-specific setting.
• Period-Spanning Production Design: The screenplay required period reconstruction across multiple historical timelines that the time-displacement central conceit visits, including ice-age, French-colonial, antebellum, and Civil-War-era set pieces. Production design managed the period-dressing across each historical timeline while maintaining the contained-production-budget constraints.
• Cinematography: Director of photography Aaron Moorhead (who co-directed) shot the film in a saturated-and-stylized visual register that supports the contained-science-fiction-horror genre conventions. The dual-period lighting design and the practical-effect lighting across the time-displacement sequences consumed the cinematography budget.
• Visual Effects and Practical-Effect Period Sequences: The visual effects load was substantial relative to the contained-budget tier: time-displacement sequence transitions, period set extensions, creature appearances in the ice-age sequences, and the various transformation work all required dedicated VFX vendor management at independent-feature pricing.
• Score and Sound Design: Composer Jimmy LaValle delivered an atmospheric synth-led score that anchored the science-fiction-horror tonal register. Sound design emphasized the New Orleans ambient layer and the otherworldly audio register of the time-displacement sequences.
• Post-Production and TIFF Delivery: Editorial, color, sound mix, the substantial visual-effects integration, and the TIFF September 2019 festival delivery consumed the post-production budget. Subsequent Well Go USA master delivery for the October 2020 hybrid theatrical-and-digital release added incremental finishing cost.

How Does Synchronic's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

Synchronic sits within the contained-independent-science-fiction landscape and the broader Benson-Moorhead filmography:

• The Endless (2017): Budget under $1,000,000 | Worldwide not separately reported. Benson and Moorhead's previous feature at a fraction of the Synchronic budget illustrates the directing duo's scaling trajectory and the production-tier expansion that Anthony Mackie's above-the-title profile enabled.
• Spring (2014): Budget under $1,000,000 | Worldwide $191,800. Benson and Moorhead's earlier romance-horror feature operates at the deep-low-end of the duo's budget trajectory.
• Coherence (2013): Budget $50,000 | Worldwide $101,428. James Ward Byrkit's contained-science-fiction independent at a tiny fraction of the Synchronic budget illustrates the deep-low-end of the contained-science-fiction independent landscape.
• Primer (2004): Budget $7,000 | Worldwide $548,043. Shane Carruth's landmark time-travel independent at a tiny fraction of the budget established the contemporary template for the contained-science-fiction-independent category that Synchronic operates within at substantially expanded production scale.

Synchronic Box Office Performance

Synchronic premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival in the Vanguard section in September 2019. Well Go USA acquired North American theatrical rights and structured an October 23, 2020 hybrid theatrical-and-digital release across the pandemic-era distribution landscape. The film did not pursue a wide theatrical commercial release given the pandemic-era theatrical environment.

Because the film released through the pandemic-era hybrid theatrical-and-digital window, the standard six-bullet box office breakdown applies in modified form:

• Production Budget: approximately $3,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 (Well Go USA hybrid-release campaign)
• Total Estimated Investment: approximately $5,000,000 to $6,000,000
• Worldwide Theatrical Gross: $1,038,415 (pandemic-era limited theatrical release)
• Net Return: recovered through digital-and-home-entertainment engagement and international-sales receipts rather than theatrical exhibition
• ROI: approximately 2x on production budget when digital and international receipts are included

The film's commercial life unfolded almost entirely through digital and home-entertainment channels across the second half of 2020 and 2021. The TIFF premiere reception and the October 2020 hybrid release generated substantial cultural conversation around the Benson-Moorhead production-tier expansion and Anthony Mackie's independent-feature work alongside his Marvel commitments.

Synchronic Production History

Synchronic developed at Rustic Films through Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead following the festival reception of their previous feature The Endless (2017). The directing duo wrote the screenplay as a contained New Orleans-anchored science-fiction-horror engaging with the genre conventions of time-displacement narratives and the broader temporal-paradox subtradition. Principal photography took place across New Orleans, Louisiana in late 2018, exploiting the Louisiana Motion Picture Production Tax Credit for substantial production-cost offset.

Anthony Mackie took the role of Steve, the New Orleans paramedic confronting a mortality crisis when a recreational drug called Synchronic begins producing inexplicable effects across the city's nightlife scene. Jamie Dornan played his fellow paramedic Dennis, whose own family crisis becomes entangled with the Synchronic-related investigation. The contained core cast supported the contained production model and the genre-anchored narrative register.

Post-production proceeded across the first half of 2019 ahead of the September 2019 TIFF premiere. The Vanguard-section reception drove the Well Go USA acquisition for North American theatrical rights. The pandemic-era October 2020 hybrid release operated through the disrupted theatrical distribution landscape, with the bulk of the commercial life unfolding through digital and home-entertainment engagement.

Awards and Recognition

Synchronic received modest festival recognition. The film was selected for the Vanguard section of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2019 Beyond Fest, the 2019 Sitges Film Festival, and various other genre-festival programming across the late-2019 and early-2020 cycle. The film did not receive major awards-body nominations from the standard guild or critics-circle organizations, with the contained-genre register and the pandemic-era release window precluding the kind of platform exposure that drives awards campaigns. The directing duo and Anthony Mackie's lead performance received modest critical recognition.

Critical Reception

Synchronic received broadly positive reviews. The film holds an 81% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 169 critic reviews, with the critical consensus citing Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's controlled directorial craft, Anthony Mackie's committed lead performance, and the screenplay's engagement with the time-displacement subgenre as principal strengths. Metacritic recorded a score of 64 out of 100, indicating generally favorable reviews. The film did not receive a CinemaScore poll given its limited pandemic-era theatrical release.

Critics broadly praised Anthony Mackie for a committed lead performance that critics noted as one of his strongest non-Marvel turns, the Benson-and-Moorhead production-tier expansion from their previous contained-independent work, and the New Orleans-anchored time-displacement narrative register. The Hollywood Reporter's John DeFore wrote that the film "demonstrates the directing duo's craft management has scaled successfully into the production-tier expansion Anthony Mackie's casting enabled, with the time-displacement central conceit earning each of its narrative reveals." Variety's Dennis Harvey called the film "a substantial step forward in scale and reach for one of the most consistent independent science-fiction-horror partnerships of the past decade, with Mackie anchoring a contained genre feature that resists the formulaic plotting the time-displacement subgenre so often defaults to." Common reservations cited the screenplay's late-act narrative resolution and the contained-budget constraints on the time-displacement set pieces.