As its October release date approaches, more info is coming to light about the upcoming Saturday Night Live movie. Originally known by the working title SNL 1975, the movie now known as Saturday Night depicts the 1975 premiere of the long-running comedy show—which at that time was called NBC’s Saturday Night.
Here’s what we know about the hotly anticipated movie so far.
Jason Reitman has an SNL connection.
Saturday Night is directed by four-time Oscar nominee Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air), who co-wrote the script with Gil Kenan.
Reitman’s father was legendary comedy director and producer Ivan Reitman, whose credits include Animal House, Meatballs, Stripes, and the Ghostbusters films—so Jason grew up around some of those early SNL players.
Reitman and Kenan also collaborated on the two most recent Ghostbusters installments, Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024).
It’s got a stacked cast.
The cast is a murderer’s row of actors embodying the original cast and crew of SNL—and according to Vanity Fair’s first-look photos, some of them are dead ringers for their real-life counterparts.
The original Not Ready for Primetime Players will be portrayed by Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Matt Wood as John Belushi, and Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris (no relation).
The behind-the-scenes figures depicted include Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, Cooper Hoffman as Dick Ebersol, Rachel Sennott as Rosie Schuster, Willem Dafoe as David Tebet, and Finn Wolfhard as an NBC Page.
The guest performers from the episode are also part of the movie: Matthew Rhys plays George Carlin, Nicholas Podany is Billy Crystal, and Jon Batiste plays musical guest Billy Preston. Nicholas Braun actually pulls double duty, portraying both performance artist Andy Kaufman and Muppets creator Jim Henson.
Rounding out the cast are J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle and Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin, Chase’s then-girlfriend.
It takes place in real-time.
The movie starts at 10 p.m. on the night of SNL’s first-ever episode. It’ll cover the chaotic 90 minutes leading up to the show in real-time. As is usually the case with SNL, the moments before the live show were full of last-minute changes, including cutting the standup performance of a young Billy Crystal.
“This is a movie where the villain is time,” Reitman told Vanity Fair. “It’s like our Sauron. Our Darth Vader is a clock, and you feel its presence at all times.”
It’s not really a comedy.
As much as it’s about a comedy show, the tone of the film itself won’t feel quite like an SNL episode. While it does have its share of humor, the movie follows the tense moments the cast and crew are experiencing in the pressurized environment, giving each cast member their own arc, creating what Reitman described to VF as “a thriller-comedy, if you can call that a genre.”
It’s all true.
While countless stories have been told about SNL in books, articles, and documentaries over the years, Reitman and Kenan did their own original reporting. They based the script on original interviews with the people who were really there—over 30 individuals in all.
“We interviewed everyone we could find that was alive from opening night,” Reitman told Vanity Fair. “Every living cast member, every living writer, people from the art department, costumes, hair and makeup, NBC pages, members of Billy Preston’s band—I mean, anyone we could find.”
That includes three individuals who have since passed away: writer Anne Beatts, production designer Eugene Lee, and costume designer Franne Lee (Eugene’s longtime professional and romantic partner).
However, given the tight timeframe it’s set in, Reitman and Kenan had to take some liberties. They altered the timeline a bit by including some stories that didn’t actually occur in the 90 minutes before the show—but they’re still true stories.
They recreated Studio 8H.
To build the movie set, late production designer Eugene Lee provided Reitman with the original schematics of Studio 8H, the NBC studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza which has been home to Saturday Night Live for almost 50 years.
Built in the 1930s for orchestra and radio shows, Studio 8H is famously not quite ideal for a fast-moving live sketch show—so it’s a crucial aspect to get right when trying to recreate the feel of being backstage at SNL.
The recreation of Studio 8H was built at a soundstage in Georgia. According to actor Gabriel LaBelle, who plays Lorne Michaels in the film, the accuracy was spot-on. He told Vanity Fair that when he visited the real studio for the first time to meet Michaels, after shooting the movie, he already knew his way to Lorne’s office.
A late-night vet did the score.
In addition to appearing as musical guest Billy Preston, musician Jon Batiste composed the score for the film. From 2015 to 2022, Batiste served as the bandleader for Stay Human, the house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
It will arrive in theaters on October 11.
Fittingly, Saturday Night will be released in theaters on October 11—exactly 49 years to the day since NBC’s Saturday Night premiered back in 1975.
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