Saturday Night trailer depicts the chaos of SNL’s first show

Sony Pictures released the first trailer for Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s exploration into the origins of NBC’s iconic sketch comedy show.

The opening night of NBC’s Saturday Night Live was chaotic, to say the least. The film begins at 10 p.m. ET on October 11, 1975, 90 minutes until SNL’s first episode airs. SNL creator Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) is scrambling to finalize the script and get his crew under control. Meanwhile, the young cast is causing havoc on the set. NBC’s Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) tries to convince Michaels to punt on the show, even going so far as to say the network wants it to fail.

“NBC is lucky to have something as relevant as this show,” Michaels emphatically tells Ebersol. “We just have to make it to air.”

The actors playing SNL‘s inaugural cast include Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Matt Wood as John Belushi, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, Tommy Dewey as Michael O’Donoghue, Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, and Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase.

Other featured cast members include Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster, Nicholas Braun as Andy Kaufman/Jim Henson, Matthew Rhys as George Carlin, Andrew Barth Feldman as Neil Levy, Naomi McPherson as Janis Ian, Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin, Jon Batiste as Billy Preston, Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page, J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle, and Willem Dafoe as David Tebet.

Reitman directs Saturday Night on a script he co-wrote with Gil Kenan. Reitman and Kenan previously collaborated on Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Producers include Reitman, Kenan, Jason Blumenfeld, and Peter Rice.

Saturday Night arrives in theaters on October 11, 2024.