Hulu’s New Star-Studded Sci-Fi Crime Comedy Breaks A Decades-Old Time Travel Movie Tradition

by

A longtime tradition in time travel movies is broken in Hulu’s Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice.

This sci-fi comedy follows two gangsters, Nick and Mike, and the woman they both love, Alice, as they find themselves in a chaotic, life-or-death situation involving a time machine. As the title suggests, Vince Vaughn plays two versions of his character, Nick, thanks to the time travel element. The film debuted at SXSW and will be available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ starting March 27th.

During an interview with ScreenRant’s Ash Crossan at SXSW for his film Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, director and writer BenDavid Grabinski discussed how he came up with the movie’s idea. He wanted to blend different genres, specifically a story where past and future versions of the same characters meet early on. This idea led to the film’s time travel focus, but Grabinski intentionally avoided the typical trope of involving scientists. As Gonzalez pointed out, he opted for a gangster theme, making it “science fiction, but no scientists,” as Vaughn clarified.

I had a lot of different movie ideas floating around, and they didn’t really connect. Then it hit me – I wanted to make an action-comedy about two buddies, but with a twist: there would be two of each buddy! I especially loved the idea of having an older, wiser version of a character interacting with their younger self, almost like a Scrooge-style meeting. I thought the humor from that dynamic would be fantastic – seeing where someone’s been and how they’ve grown, contrasted with who they used to be.

It quickly became clear that the story should be about time travel, something I’d always wanted to explore. I envisioned a time travel movie where none of the characters were scientists or understood the mechanics of it. I wanted to avoid lengthy explanations of how the time travel device or the concept itself worked. While it needed to be believable within the story, I didn’t want the focus to be on the science of it all, and I thought this approach would be a lot of fun.

Most time travel movies, like Back to the Future and Avengers: Endgame, feature a character – often a scientist like Doc Brown or Bruce Banner – who explains how time travel works. However, the film Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is different. It doesn’t offer any explanation at all, and the characters have to figure things out as they go, without understanding the rules of time travel.

While the movie’s scientific explanations are limited, the idea of time travel combined with a gangster storyline isn’t new. Rian Johnson’s 2012 film, Looper, starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, used a similar premise – a hitman who travels through time while working for a criminal organization. However, Looper is a serious action thriller, whereas Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is a comedic take on the concept, focusing on the funny interactions between two versions of the same character.

The movie Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, starring Vaughn, Marsden, and González, also includes a talented supporting cast featuring Keith David, Jimmy Tatro, Ben Schwartz, Stephen Root, Lewis Tan, Arturo Castro, and Emily Hampshire.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice comes to Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ on March 27.

Read More

2026-03-15 17:38