Whether it is busting ghosts or assembling some of the best comedians/actors to play television’s collective of some of the greatest comedians/actors, Jason Reitman has been in charge of both. Canadian-American filmmaker Reitman most recently created a new generation of Ghostbusters films with Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Frozen Empire—acting as direct sequels to the original two films his father, Ivan Reitman, originally directed.
Reitman became widely recognized for his work on Juno, winning multiple Academy Awards for the film—and was the breakout role for Elliot Page (The Umbrella Academy, Inception). Now, he has done the impossible by making a ‘real-time movie’ that will make audiences’ hearts pound within each stressful moment of Saturday Night. The film premiered at TIFF 2024.
Saturday Night captures the frenzied lead-up to the very first episode of Saturday Night Live as a motley bunch of then-unknown and untrained young comedians prepare to step into a revolutionary spotlight that will change history and make them all stars. CGMagazine was able to discuss more details behind recreating the magic of that fateful Saturday night.
At what point did you and Gil [Kenan] realize the story of Saturday Night was going to be about the show as the main character versus doing a biopic on Lorne [Michaels] and assembling the cast and crew?
Jason Reitman: It’s interesting. It happened in the reverse order. It wasn’t like ‘oh, we want to make a movie about SNL. What should we do? Oh, the 90 minutes leading to show time.’ We wanted to make a movie about 90 minutes leading to showtime. Let’s do it at SNL.
SNL is just the location for a concept that was already swirling in my head, which was, I want to do a real time movie. I want to do a story that takes place in 90 consecutive minutes. I love movies like Victoria (2015) where you follow a character’s journey that happens in real time. And I had spent time at SNL, I always wanted to capture the energy of what it feels like there. And all of a sudden it was like, oh, (snaps fingers) opening night.! And it just hit me.
On the note of improvisation, what were some of the best improvised moments in Saturday Night that you didn’t expect would stay in the final cut?
Jason Reitman: The first thing that comes to mind is Lamorne Morris, who is a genius improviser. When he gets that vial of cocaine and he goes, “I’m gonna put this away. This is illegal.” And he has a bunch of those. Lamorne can also make something funny with just the sounds. He can be like (high-pitch re-enactment of Morris saying) ‘what’, or Lamorne going ‘what script?’ All of those are improvised, and he’s constantly adding genius.
One of the lines that stuck out to me was, “what is the show?” Everyone keeps asking Lorne that question. And I was actually curious for you as a kid or teenager, first watching SNL, what did the show mean to you?
Jason Reitman: When I was a teenager, I just could not believe they did it every Saturday. I watched it for the first time, and it felt like, ‘Oh, this must be a special thing they do once a year.’ And my dad told me, ‘No, they do this every Saturday.’ There’s 90 new minutes every Saturday. And it felt like a gift that I didn’t even deserve.
And now it’s just a question of, ‘What do I have to do to stay awake till one in the morning every Saturday’, and I think that’s what we all feel. It’s one of the things that’s brilliant about the show, right? It’s perfect for when you’re little and you want to stay up like the big kids. And that’s how I felt watching SNL.
Thanks so much, really appreciate it!
