With Saturday Night Live celebrating its 50th season in fall 2024, the long-running sketch comedy series is planning to go all out. Tangentially, the occasion is also going to be celebrated on the big screen, with Jason Reitman directing a 2024 new movie about the very first episode of SNL , which is titled Saturday Night .
SNL has a long history of movies, but to date, it has been movies based on their popular sketches/characters; think Wayne's World , Superstar and Night at the Roxbury . Saturday Night is instead going to focus on what went on behind the scenes to get the first episode to air.
Here is everything that you need to know about Saturday Night .
Saturday Night release date
Saturday Night is going to release exclusively in movie theaters on October 11, which is exactly 49 years from when the first Saturday Night Live episode premiered. That prime fall release date will likely have many pegging Saturday Night as a potential Oscar contender.
As far as what it is going up against in terms of other new releases that week, the only other movie currently slated for October 11 is the Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh drama We Live in Time .
Saturday Night cast
The group of comedians and entertainment figures that were involved with the first ever episode of Saturday Night Live is legendary: Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Michael O'Donoghue, Gilda Radner, Andy Kaufman, George Carlin, Jim Henson, Dick Ebersol, Lorne Michaels and more. Well, Saturday Night has rounded up an impressive cast of young and established actors to portray the main Saturday Night Live players, here's a rundown of the announced cast:
- Gabriel LaBelle ( The Fabelmans ) as Lorne Michaels
- Dylan O'Brien ( The Maze Runner ) as Dan Aykroyd
- Cory Michael Smith ( May December ) as Chevy Chase
- Rachel Sennott ( Bottoms ) as Rosie Shuster
- Lamorne Morris ( Fargo season 5 ) as Garrett Morris
- Nicholas Braun ( Succession ) as Jim Henson
- Finn Wolfhard ( Stranger Things ) as an NBC page
- Jon Batiste ( American Symphony ) as Billy Preston
- Ella Hunt ( Horizon: An American Saga ) as Gilda Radner
- Cooper Hoffman ( Licorice Pizza ) as Dick Ebersol
- Andrew Barth Feldman ( No Hard Feelings ) as Neil Levy
- Musician Naomi McPherson as Janis Ian
- Willem Dafoe ( Kinds of Kindness ) as David Tebet
- JK Simmons ( Red One ) as Milton Berle
- Kaia Gerber ( Palm Royale ) as Jacqueline Carlin
All reports say that Braun is playing Jim Henson, who was an early member of the SNL troupe, but from the behind-the-scene pictures that we've seen, we wonder if he's not in fact going to end up playing Andy Kaufman, as he certainly looks like he is donned up as the iconic comedian. We'll update if any official word on that comes in.
Saturday Night plot
Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan wrote the script for Saturday Night based on interviews that they did with living cast members, writers and crew members from the first ever Saturday Night Live episode. Here is the movie's synopsis:
Saturday Night is based on a true story and follows the humor, chaos and magic of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live .
Saturday Night trailer
There is no trailer for Saturday Night at this time. But considering how close we are to a release date, we expect one to become available soon. When it arrives online we'll add it here.
Jason Reitman movies
In addition to co-writing the screenplay, Reitman is also directing Saturday Night . Reitman is a four-time Oscar nominee, two of which are Best Directing nominations for his movies Juno and Up in the Air . Here's a complete look at Reitman’s filmography to date:
- Thank You for Smoking (2005)
- Juno (2007)
- Up in the Air (2010)
- Young Adult (2011)
- Labor Day (2013)
- Men, Women & Children (2014)
- Tully (2018)
- The Front Runner (2018)
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
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