The trailer for Saturday Night has arrived. There's been lots of hype surrounding the film, given the iconography and the specific moment in popular culture it's seeking to recreate. Any film that has a crop of young actors playing John Belushi and Gilda Radnor is bound to grab the attention of comedy fans. For better or worse.
Thankfully, Saturday Night seems like an instance of better. The film, directed by Jason Reitman, will take place in the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975.
It looked chaotic, as depicted in the trailer, and the chips was stacked so high against creator Lorne Michaels that you'd swear it was fictionalized for dramatic effect. You know what they say about truth, though.
There's a lot to unpack in the Saturday Night trailer, but these are some random thoughts we had during the first viewing. Call them hot takes if you want, but we're pretty sure they'll hold up once the film drops on October 11.
1. Gabriel LaBelle is an extremely convincing Lorne Michaels
Gabriel LaBelle has seemingly found his calling. The actor first rose to prominence playing a thinly veiled version of Steven Spielberg in The Fabelmans (2022), and how he's channeling SNL creator Lorne Michaels like he stole the man's soul.
Seriously, LaBelle has scrubbed away any trace of Spielbergian wonder and replaced it with the SNL creator's trademark stoicism. We've come to know Lorne Michaels as an outsized character in recent decades, thanks to countless impressions by cast members, but LaBelle seemingly taps into the soul of the guy without making him sound like Dr. Evil.
(Also, if you haven't already, check out Gabriel LaBelle in the teen comedy Snack Snack. The kid's having a great 2024.)
2. Cory Michael Smith is going to steal the show as Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase didn't grow into an outsized personality like Lorne Michaels, he was an outsized personality from the start. Chase was the first star to come out of SNL, and Cory Michael Smith manages to show us why despite only having a few lines.
The Chase persona is a tricky one to recreate. Ryan Reynolds has been trying to do it for decades. Hats off to Smith, who not only looks like the SNL star but manages to capture his flippant charm by taking a massive pratfall in the trailer's final moments. "Sorry," he says while getting up. "Tripped over my penis."
A little Chase goes a long way, and it looks like Smith's performance is going to be the topping on Saturday Night.
3. Cooper Hoffman is channeling his late father (and Dick Ebersol)
Cooper Hoffman's dad, Philip Seymour Hoffman, was one of the greatest actors of all time. Full stop. He could play any type of character, in any type of film. Holding Cooper up to this standard would be wildly unfair, but it's hard to watch him in the Saturday Night trailer and be taken with his versatility.
We're talking about a guy who played a lovesick teenager in Licorice Pizza (2021), and is now playing Dick Ebersol, the director of late night programming at NBC. That's a hard, hard pivot to make in less than three years, and Cooper Hoffman sells it through body language and an overall cynical outlook.
We know the elder Hoffman would be proud.
4. The trailer is keeping John Belushi at a distance
John Belushi is the most mythologized comedian in Saturday Night Live history, largely due to the comedic fireworks he generated onscreen, and the tragic circumstances in which he died. He does pop up a few times in the Saturday Night trailer, but he's relegated to looking dangerous and making silly faces.
Belushi, who is played by Matt Wood, is billed tenth in the Saturday Night cast, which leads me to believe that he isn't going to have as big a presence within the film as some may want. The trailer makes it seem as though he'll be deployed in short bursts, perhaps even as a refresher from the tense conversations that will dominate the rest of the runtime.
5. The film's premise is going to be its saving grace
A film about the origins of Saturday Night Live sounds good on paper, but a film that spans years and hits all the major beats in the show's first couple years would be a bore. It's the biopic problem, and a reason why something like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) is so incisive in parodying it.
Saturday Night looks like it will avoid this Wikipedia entry problem by centering on a single moment in the show's history, and it's going to be all the better for it. By putting characters in a pressure cooker situation, the film ensures that it will have dramatic stakes, narrative focus, and an actual climax. It worked for the Oscar-nominated Steve Jobs (2015).
Also, to paraphrase another Aaron Sorkin screenplay, The Social Network (2010), kudos to whoever changed the title of the film from Saturday Night Live to Saturday Night. Its cleaner, and will make it much easier to differentiate from the show.