Saturday Night Trailer Recreates TV and Comedy History

Movies

The Saturday Night Live movie is a lot closer than I thought it was. Announced a little over a year ago, the film, which is now called Saturday Night (which isn’t a great title, but it’s better than SNL 1975, its working title from earlier this year), is about the show’s first episode in 1975, taken from a series of interviews with the surviving cast and crew. Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan, the writers of the two recent Ghostbusters movies (but I won’t hold that against them, especially Reitman, because he’s done some great stuff in the past), conducted the interviews and wrote the script, and Reitman will direct. The last word on this film was in January when actors portraying the original Saturday Night Live cast were assembled: Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Matt Wood as John Belushi, Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, and Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman. Now, we’ve got a trailer and a release date: Saturday Night, which is being distributed by Sony, will arrive in theaters on October 11, 2024. You can see the trailer below:

The cast looks perfect based on the trailer. You only see small snippets of the SNL performers, but I love Cory Michael Smith’s Chevy Chase; he’s got the gangly clutz persona Chase affected down pat, which makes me wonder if that pratfall he takes at the end of the trailer was planned or a legitimate stumble. And his follow-up line is pure Chevy, delivered with perfection. We don’t get much of a sense of Dylan O’Brien’s Dan Aykroyd, but the look is great, perhaps at least in part because of those huge sunglasses Aykroyd used to wear. (Announcer Don Pardo being unable to pronounce his name is hilarious.) Ella Hunt and Lamorne Morris may be the best ones from a physical perspective; they’re the spitting images of Gilda Radner and Garrett Morris. I also like how subdued John Belushi is in the trailer; I’m sure we’ll see much more of his oversized personality in the movie, but as presented here, he’s like the ticking time bomb you’re waiting to see explode. The Saturday Night trailer also reveals some other cast members, like Matthew Rhys as George Carlin, Saturday Night Live’s very first host. Willem Dafoe plays David Tebet, a talent recruiter and accommodator for NBC, and J.K. Simmons portrays legendary comedian Milton Berle.

But perhaps the key role will be Lorne Michaels, the creator and producer of Saturday Night Live. Michaels is being played by Gabriel LaBelle, and I have no idea who this guy is. Maybe that’s a good thing; in fact, it’s probably good that most of the SNL stars are being played by relative unknowns. We won’t see the actors, just the legends they bring to life. And I like what we see of LaBelle’s performance in the trailer; despite being so young, there are bits here and there where you can hear even the older Lorne Michaels coming from LaBelle. It’s funny for someone growing up so long after the fact to see a guy with as much clout and stature as Lorne Michaels scrambling to prove himself to an industry ready to chew him up and spit him out. The line about how “they” are rooting for him to fail is perfect and indicative of the way Hollywood operates; they don’t like innovators who challenge conventional wisdom, and it makes sense that they’d have wanted to crush Lorne Michaels. If you really want to be impressed, Gabriel LaBelle is only 21 years old, and he’s playing a 30-year-old Lorne Michaels; this could be a big break for him. I have very high hopes for Saturday Night, and the trailer has only amplified them.

Let us know what you think of the Saturday Night trailer or former comedy show Saturday Night Live in the comments!