Jason Reitman has been creating a buzz in the media regarding his Columbia Pictures project Untitled SNL 1975. It was recently announced that the film will be titled Saturday Night, and the star-studded cast is finally confirmed. Saturday Night will be in theatres on the 49th anniversary of the first episode of the comedy television series, Saturday Night Live, and 19 main actors will star to portray its main players.
Saturday Night will follow the story of Saturday Night Live’s first-ever episode aired on October 11, 1975. Reitman and Gil Kenan, co-writer alongside Reitman, conducted various interviews with the first episode’s cast, crew, and writers to perfect every detail.
According to Deadline, the first actor associated with the project is Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans) portraying Lorne Michaels, the show’s co-creator alongside Dick Ebersol. Michaels also wrote for the show and served as an executive producer. Cooper Hoffman will portray Dick Ebersol alongside LaBelle, Hoffman is known for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza and for being the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
SNL had seven original cast members. In this adaptation, fans will see Matt Wood as John Belushi, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, and Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman.
Fans will also see Nicholas Podany playing Billy Crystal. Although Crystal was not part of the original cast, he was part of a sketch that was cut from the first episode. Tommy Dewey will play Michael O’Donoghue, the first head writer of SNL and an eventual cast member. Taylor Gray will play Al Franken and Mcabe Gregg will play Tom Davis, two writers for the show’s first season. Joe Crest will be Herb Sargent, a famous television writer. Nick Braun will play Jim Henson, the puppeteer, and creator of The Muppets, who starred in multiple episodes of SNL during its first season. J.K. Simmons plays Milton Berle, a TV comedian, and eventual SNL host. Willem Dafoe will play David Tebet, an NBC executive, and Leander Suleiman will play Anne Beatts, one of the show’s writers.
In addition to these 19 main roles, various other stars will be featured in the film as other key players in the creation of this piece of historic television. Rachel Sennott will star as Rosie Shuster, Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin, Andrew Barth Feldman as Neil Levy, Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page, and Naomi McPherson as Janis Ian.
Saturday Night will be in theatres on October 11 and will be a project you will not want to miss.