Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night! Well, actually, it’s Thursday afternoon here in the UK. But the trailer for Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night just dropped – and it looks to be a star-studded, comedy-laden, chaotic affair, as creator Lorne Michaels (The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle) counts down the minutes before his pioneering show SNL goes on air for the very first time. Watch it here:
These days, SNL is a late-night juggernaut, attracting A-list hosts and musical guests, regularly going viral with inspired skits, and acting as fertile ground for the biggest names in American comedy to cut their teeth. But back in October 1975, it was a free show that NBC were struggling to get an audience in for – an untested gamble, filled with big names having big arguments, thrown onto TVs across the nation before it was ready. LaBelle leads a mega cast, which also includes Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Willem Dafoe and Licorice Pizza’s Cooper Hoffman as executives David Tebet and Dick Ebersol, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, and many, many more.
Based on the real-life events of the build-up to SNL’s first broadcast, Saturday Night has Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Frozen Empire collaborators Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan heading up the behind-the-camera crew, with Reitman directing and co-writing, and Kenan also co-writing. We’ll see if the gang get their shit together when Saturday Night comes to cinemas on 11 October.