Lorne Michaels, Chevy Chase, and more race against the clock in first trailer for “SNL” biopic “Saturday Night”
See the first footage of Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Dylan O’Brien, Willem Dafoe, J.K. Simmons, Jon Batiste, Kaia Gerber, Lamorne Morris, and more in Studio 8H.
It’s 10 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11, 1975, and the clock is ticking.
The first trailer for Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night Live biopic Saturday Night shows the intensity of the 90 minutes leading up to the show’s first-ever broadcast. The trailer offers glimpses of the movie’s young versions of SNL legends like Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), John Belushi (Matt Wood), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien), Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), and, of course, the man pulling all the strings, Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle).
Sony Pictures Entertainment/YouTube
Cast of 'Saturday Night'The trailer begins with an NBC page (played by Finn Wolfhard, who worked with Reitman on two Ghostbusters movies) trying in vain to distribute tickets to the first taping of the show. “Free comedy show, plenty of seats,” he says as passersby ignore his pleas. “Plenty of tickets left guys, free show! F---’s sake.”
We then see our first look at LaBelle, who’s desperately trying to get past security at 30 Rock. “Look, my name is Lorne Michaels, I’m the producer of Saturday Night,” he says. “The whole night?” a security guard responds. “Yeah, the whole night.”
TRAILER BELOW
In Studio 8H, announcer Don Pardo struggles with one particular name as he goes through the cast list. “Chevy Chase! Gilda Radner! Dan Ayekuh — how the f--- do you pronounce this?”
The rest of the trailer is primarily built around a conversation between Michales and NBC exec Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman), who debate whether or not the show will go on. “You know, I was thinking: why don’t we punt? We should run the dress rehearsal and claw back a win next Saturday,” Ebersol suggests. “We can’t, Dick, it’s a live show,” Michaels responds. “We’re just not ready,” Dick says. “It doesn’t matter that we’re ready, it matters that it’s 11:30. That’s when we go on,” Michaels insists.
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NBC exec David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) jumps in to criticize Michaels, too. “Look around, Lorne: you haven’t locked a script, your crew is in open rebellion,” he says. Host George Carlin (Matthew Rhys) cusses out the crew, Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun) reports that Big Bird has been hanged in his office, and fireworks erupt on set. We also see glimpses of musical guest Billy Preston (Jon Batiste, who also composed the movie’s score), Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons), Jacqueline Carlin (Kaia Gerber), and Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott).
Ebersol continues to try to talk Michaels down. “NBC makes more money playing reruns of The Tonight Show,” he says. “NBC is lucky to have something as relevant as this show,” Michaels shoots back. “Lorne, they don’t even want it!” Ebersol argues. “That’s logical, Dick, that’s why we’re paying us all to be here.”
Sony Pictures
Rachel Sennott and Gabriel LaBelle in 'Saturday Night'Related: Saturday Night Live origin movie casts its young Lorne Michaels
Throughout their argument, we see flashes of chaos behind the scenes: a pile of bricks crashing down in the studio, Lorne tearing apart the scheduling bulletin board, Michael O’Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) burning a script in an office, Lorne being sprayed with red paint, Andy Kaufman (also Braun) rehearsing his Mighty Mouse lip sync, Radner and Aykroyd jokingly dry-humping in front of the crew, Chase physically assaulting Belushi in the dressing room, glass breaking, lights falling…
Dick proposes a chilling idea: the show isn’t set up to succeed. “I mean, we are 90 minutes of live television by a group of 20 year olds who have never made anything,” he says. “Did you ever stop and wonder why they said ‘Yes’? A counterculture show starring total unknowns with zero narrative and even less structure? They want you to fail.”
“We just have to make it to air,” Lorne concludes.
Saturday Night hits theaters Oct. 11, exactly 49 years after the first SNL broadcast. Watch the first trailer above.
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