This Is The 'Saturday Night' Trailer, And You’re Not
This Is The 'Saturday Night' Trailer, And You’re Not
Embrace the pleasant tomorrow as Jason Reitman’s 'Saturday Night Live' film releases on October 11
And a good Lorning to you too! Following a first look feature in Vanity Fair that came very quickly after a release date installation that is admittedly fast-approaching, meaning marketing had to begin, the first trailer for Sony Pictures’s Saturday Night has been released.
The trailer contains a distressing look at the frenzied 90 minutes on October 11, 1975 preceding the premiere of NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. The writers are inebriated, the set is on fire, the sound system is wrecked, the actors are brawling, the crew is in open revolt. Series creator Lorne Michaels, played by Gabriel LaBelle, is fighting his hardest to make sure everything is going smoothly, but it’s evidently quite the opposite. He faces unpredictable cast members and bothersome network executives, namely Dick Ebersol, played by Cooper Hoffman, over the show’s aesthetic and even abandoning most of the live aspect, programming chief David Tebet, played by Willem Dafoe, and even some meager Rockefeller Center security just to get into the elevator. There’s Matthew Rhys getting to curse everyone out as the show’s first host George Carlin, and Nicholas Braun’s deadpan Jim Henson complaining to Lamorne Morris’s Garrett Morris as the crew’s infamous abhorrence of having to write The Land of Gorch, which featured Henson’s Muppets, first shows itself. There’s even one of the Muppets nearby. And yes there’s that look at the Weekend Update set.
There’s probably glimpses of nearly everyone in there, in a cast that also features Braun as Andy Kaufman (seen twice), as well as Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, 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, and Jon Batiste and Naomi McPherson as Billy Preston and Janis Ian. There’s also Tommy Dewey as other co-head writer Michael O’Donoghue, Taylor Gray and Mcabe Gregg as Al Franken and Tom Davis, Joe Chrest as Herb Sargent, Rachel Sennott as Rosie Schuster, Leander Suleiman as Anne Beatts, Andrew Barth Feldman as talent coordinator Neil Levy, Nicholas Podany as almost-onscreen but still-future cast member Billy Crystal, Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page, J. K. Simmons as Milton Berle (who there are definite glimpses of), and Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin (no relation).
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. They produce with Jason Blumenfeld and Peter Rice, while Erica Mills and Joann Perritano are executive producers. Batiste is also scoring Saturday Night, which is set for release on October 11, 2024, the show’s 49th anniversary.
Sources: Variety, Deadline