Gabriel LaBelle, Matt Wood and Dylan O’Brien in “Saturday Night.”
Saturday Night—director Jason Reitman’s movie about the first episode of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, aka SNL—is coming to Netflix this week.
Rated R, Saturday Night opened in limited release in theaters on Sept. 12, 2024, and expanded to a nationwide release on Oct. 11.
The official logline for Saturday Night reads, “At 11:30 p.m. on October 11th, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television forever. Find out what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live.”
According to Netflix, Saturday Night will arrive on the streaming service on Saturday, Jan. 25. You must subscribe to Netflix to watch Saturday Night on the streaming platform. The streaming service offers a basic, ad-based package for $6.99 per month, where you can watch the film on two supported devices, as well as a standard package with no ads for $15.49 per month on four supported devices.
Also, Netflix has a premium package for $22.99 per month on four supported devices on 4K Ultra HD.
For viewers who don’t have Netflix, Saturday Night is also available for purchase or rent on digital streaming via premium video on demand
Jason Reitman Sought To Evoke ‘Essence’ Of Original ‘SNL’ Cast Members
Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans) leads the ensemble cast of Saturday Night as SNL producer Lorne Michaels.
Saturday Night also stars Matt Wood as John Belushi, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Lamore Morris as Garrett Morris, Emily Fairn as Lorraine Newman and Kim Matula as Jane Curtin.
In an interview with The Wrap in October, Jason Reitman said he had a specific idea of what his cast needed to capture when playing the roles of the original Saturday Night Live cast members.
“When we started doing auditions, a lot of people came in doing caricatures of Lorne Michaels and of Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd, and we were never after that,” Reitman told The Wrap.
“The movie is meant to evoke an essence of each of these characters, one detail of each character that captures who they are, and it’s the culmination of them, because obviously, it’s a movie about disparate people who come together to get this show on the air,” Reitman added. “We needed Chevy’s ego and Garrett [Morris] feeling lost and [John] Belushi’s genuine fear of being a star.”
In addition to the actors who play the original Saturday Night Live cast, Saturday Night also stars Nicholas Braun in two roles—as iconic stand-up comedian Andy Kaufman and legendary Muppet creator Jim Henson.
The film also stars Rachel Sennot as SNL writer Rosie Shuster, Cooper Hoffman as the show’s producer, Dick Ebersol, Willem Dafoe as NBC executive David Tebet and Jon Batiste as musician Billy Preston.
Saturday Night earned a 78% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 222 reviews, while audiences gave the movie an 84% “fresh” rating on RT’s Popcornmeter based on 500-plus verified user ratings.
According to The Numbers, Saturday Night earned $9.5 million in North American theaters and more than $241,000 in international ticket sales for a worldwide box office take of more than $9.7 million.
Deadline reported that Saturday Night had a production budget of $30 million before prints and advertising costs.
Jason Reitman’s SNL movie Saturday Night arrives on streaming on Netflix on Saturday.
