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Saturday Night movie storyline. It’s the mid-1970s, and a flipbook of Watergate, Vietnam, and rising counterculture make everything old in America feel broken, and everything new feel scary as hell. And now, yet another certainty is about to crack. Because in 90 minutes’ time, live, from New York, it’s Saturday Night.
Saturday Night is a 2024 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman, about the night of the 1975 premiere of NBC’s Saturday Night, later known as Saturday Night Live.
The script was written by Reitman and Gil Kenan, with both also co-producing it alongside Jason Blumenfeld and Peter Rice. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, and J. K. Simmons.
Saturday Night had its world premiere at the 51st Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2024, and is scheduled for a limited theatrical release in the United States on September 27, 2024, before its wide release by Sony Pictures Releasing on October 11, 2024, on the 49th anniversary of the show’s premiere.
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Saturday Night dives headfirst into the frenzied hour-and-a-half before a clutch of unknown, untrained, unruly young comedians took over network television and transformed the culture. Saturday Night Live would go on to become the late-night institution that brought John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and later Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, and others to our screens. But tonight, it’s barely contained madness backstage, with Canadian Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle, The Fabelmans, TIFF ’22) desperately trying to channel the chaos towards a vision even he’s not sure of.
On the eve of SNL’s 50th anniversary, it’s a particular pleasure to watch how unlikely it all was at the beginning. Chevy Chase honing the frat boy charm that would make him a movie star. Garrett Morris saying America’s racial quiet part out loud. Belushi a bundle of Id in the corner. Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner holding their own against a tide of comedy testosterone.
Director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) has made certified classics, but he’s never made a film like this. Fuelled by the same anarchic energy that drove the show to air, he orchestrates this tour de force as a glorious circus of talent, ambition, and appetite for risk, with the clock ticking down to showtime.
Director Jason Reitman captures the frenzied lead-up to the very first episode of Saturday Night Live as a motley bunch of then-unknown and untrained young comedians prepare to step into a revolutionary spotlight that will change history and make them all stars.
Saturday Night (2024)
Directed by: Jason Reitman
Starring: Rachel Sennott, Dylan O’Brien, Willem Dafoe, Ella Hunt, Kaia Gerber, J.K. Simmons, Gabriel LaBelle, Finn Wolfhard, Lamorne Morris, Tommy Dewey, Matt Wood, Kim Matula, Nicholas Braun
Screenplay by: Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman
Production Design by: Jess Gonchor
Cinematography by: Eric Steelberg
Film Editing by: Nathan Orloff, Shane Reid
Costume Design by: Danny Glicker
Set Decoration by: Claudia Bonfe
Art Direction by: Drew Monahan, Kristen Sherwin
Music by: Jon Batiste
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, sexual references, some drug use and brief graphic nudity.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: October 11, 2024
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