I won’t lie, I have never been an avid watcher of Saturday Night Live. I have never even seen a full episode of the show, but having grown up in the era of the internet, I, like many of my generation, just watched the best bits on YouTube. Yet, that is not to say that I don’t appreciate cultural and artistic relevance that has kept SNL on-air for almost fifty years, while producing some of the most enduring comedy stars in in the history of movies and TV, such as Chevy Chase, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Chris Rock, Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, and of course Canadians Dan Aykroyd and Mike Myers.
Five decades with countless larger than life stars and cast members is sure to make for one hell of a storied history (and of that you can be sure), but for his tenth feature in the director’s chair, Montreal native Jason Reitman, son of the late and great Ivan Reitman, has decided to go all the way back to the inception to the live sketch show with SNL 1975, covering the lead-up to its premiere episode in – you guessed it – 1975.
SNL was created by another Canadian, Lorne Michaels, who has also been the primary producer for forty-four of its forty-nine year history, Michaels has been the driving force behind the show for almost its entire existence, even in the midst of all the stars it has featured over the years. Thus, it only makes sense that Michaels would be the central character of Reitman’s movie, whose script he wrote with frequent collaborator Gil Kenan, and as it happens, Michaels will be portrayed by fellow Canadian Gabriel LaBelle, perhaps best known for his leading role in Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans, essentially playing Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical character.
LaBelle’s primary supporting cast member will likely be Liquorice Pizza star Cooper Hoffman, son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who will be portraying the then up-and-coming producer prodigy Dick Ebersol. However, other seminal figures in the creation of SNL will feature prominently also, including legendary Canadian writer for the show Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott), Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn), Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), and Cory Michael Smith Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith). Legendary figures Billy Crystal and John Belushi also feature and will be portrayed by lesser known actors Nicholas Podany and Matt Wood respectively, which is actually quite comforting upon consideration, as Reitman’s casting as a whole is clearly trying to put the right actors with the right real-life figures, rather than trying to shoehorn big names just for the sake of selling tickets.
However, there are still some big names appearing in different roles, some of whom are playing some pretty big names. Perhaps the best example is Oscar-winner and friend to Jason Reitman, J.K Simmons, portraying Milton Berle, who many consider the first true American TV star and has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to both TV and radio. Another seminal figure in the entertainment industry to appear in the movie is Muppets creator Jim Henson, whose creations appeared on the show much to the chagrin of its writers at the time, and he will be portrayed by none other than Nicholas Braun, who played the hilarious Cousin Greg in Succession. If all this wasn’t enough, former Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Baptiste – who, by the way, is also a Grammy and Oscar-winning musician and composer – is scoring SNL 1975, in addition to portraying renowned musician Billy Preston. Other notable actors appearing in the film include Canadians Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk in unnamed by likely fictional roles, Joe Chrest as writer and producer Herb Sergeant, Taylor Gray as comedian and future US senator Al Franken, and the singular Willem Dafoe as publicist and network executive David Tebet.
Filming for SNL 1975 only began in March of this year, and while a release date has yet to be announced, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it targeted the same date as the 50th anniversary of SNL, October 11th, 2025, which, studio executives will be happy to hear, is a Saturday, so they may aim for a midnight release.