Sony’s 'Saturday Night' Is Alright For A Fitting Release Date

Jason Reitman’s movie about the moments leading up to 'Saturday Night Live’s premiere releases this fall

Grab your airport sushi, leave behind your Debbie Downers, we have an official title and release date for Jason Reitman’s film that was previously working under the title of SNL 1975, about the moments leading up to the premiere of NBC’s seminal sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. The film is now known as Saturday Night, and will be released in theaters on October 11, 2024.

The choice is very much intentional as a historical echo, as it’s the 49th anniversary of the show’s premiere, and back then when Saturday Night Live premiered on that date in 1975, it was just known as NBC’s Saturday Night thanks to ABC’s Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell premiering just a few weeks before. The surviving series wouldn’t start taking on the name until its 41st episode deep into its second season, before taking it on permanently at the start of the next. There’s been rumblings that the show’s 50th season will start on September 28, as the week that falls in is when NBC’s fall primetime schedule has already been set to begin. Therefore, the film will probably premiere just before the season’s third episode.

'SNL 1975' Casts Leander Suleiman As Writer Anne Beatts

Saturday Night stars The Fabelmans’s Gabrielle LaBelle as series creator (and initial co-head writer) Lorne Michaels, Tommy Dewey as other co-head writer Michael O’Donoghue, Taylor Gray and Mcabe Gregg as Al Franken and Tom Davis, Stranger Things’s Joe Chrest as Herb Sargent, Rachel Sennott as Rosie Schuster, Leander Suleiman as Anne Beatts, Cooper Hoffman as Dick Ebersol, and Andrew Barth Feldman as talent coordinator Neil Levy. The cast portraying the major onscreen talent includes Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Matt Wood as John Belushi, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, and Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, Nicholas Podany as almost-onscreen but still-future cast member Billy Crystal, Jon Batiste and Naomi McPherson as original musical guests Billy Preston and Janis Ian, with Batiste composing the film’s score as well, Willem Dafoe as executive David Tebet, Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page, J. K. Simmons as Milton Berle, and Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin.

Recent test screenings have solved the discrepancy as to who Nicholas Braun is playing, between Jim Henson, the role which he was reported to be cast in, and Andy Kaufman, the role he was spotted on set in. It turns out it’s both, so he’s playing the man whose Muppets played in the The Land of Gorch segments that first season, and the man who did his famous Mighty Mouse routine in that premiere episode, respectively.

Reitman is not only directing but teams again with his Ghostbusters: Afterlife co-writer (and Frozen Empire director) Gil Kenan for a script based on an extensive series of interviews they conducted with all surviving cast, writers, and crew. It is also part of their overall production deal with the studio. Frozen Empire landed at #2 on the streaming charts after debuting on Netflix last Sunday with 10.2 million views over its first week , which equates to 19.6 million hours viewed. They produce with Jason Blumenfeld and Peter Rice, while Erica Mills and Joann Perritano are executive producers.

Some sources are expecting Saturday Night to be brought to the Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF, since Sony always has a presence there, combined with Reitman previously bringing the Gary Hart movie The Front Runner starring Hugh Jackman there in 2018.

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Sources: Deadline, World of Reel (via Latenighter), NBC