Jason Reitman Will Direct a Saturday Night Live Movie

Movies

The writers’ strike may have shuttered Saturday Night Live for a while, but the landmark sketch show will have its story told soon. Deadline exclusively reports that Jason Reitman will be directing a movie about the first episode of Saturday Night Live, which was once a comedy show. Reitman is writing the script with Gil Kenan, with whom he wrote Ghostbusters: Afterlife and its upcoming sequel; the script is based on “an extensive series of interviews conducted by Reitman and Kenan with all the living cast, writers and crew.” The film, which is currently untitled, is part of a deal Reitman and Kenan have with Sony Pictures following the success of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Deadline describes the film like this:

“The film will be set on October 11, 1975, where a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television forever. This is the true story of what happened that night behind the scenes in the moments leading up to the first SNL broadcast, retelling chaos and magic of a revolution that almost wasn’t, counting down the minutes in real time to the infamous words, ‘Live From New York, it’s Saturday Night.’”

That sounds great to me. Before it eschewed comedy entirely, I loved Saturday Night Live. Everyone’s got their preferred era, and mine is the one from the late 80s through the 90s (though I have a soft spot for the following period ending whenever Will Ferrell left), with legends like Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock, Norm MacDonald, Tim Meadows, Cheri Oteri, Phil Hartman, and the supernova of Chris Farley. But focusing on the show’s beginning is a better story for a movie like this, and I’m sure the atmosphere behind the scenes of the premiere was tense, with everyone wondering if they’d made a giant blunder getting themselves involved with this experiment. This is the sort of thing I’d much rather see Jason Reitman do than another Lil’ Ghostbusters film. He’s made some fantastic movies, like Up in the Air, Thank You For Smoking, and Young Adult. I’m interested in seeing who they get to play the cast (and host George Carlin); those guys are royalty, and anyone who tries to capture what made them so has his work cut out for him. It would be nice to fit the real cast members in there somehow; maybe the movie is a reminiscence between Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. If Reitman casts Dana Carvey as Lorne Michaels, he’s got an instant classic on his hands.