When a studio world premieres a movie at Telluride to tee off its chances during awards season, they have to make sure they’ve got the goods, and Sony certainly did coming away from its launch of Jason Reitman‘s all-star Saturday Night about the 90-minute agita experienced by SNL producer Lorne Michaels before the show’s first broadcast in the fall of 1975.
Reitman is a true auteur in the sense of the word, a filmmaker who has done it his way. Saturday Night for one is shot in 16MM, cinema verité style with shots careening through network hallways and backstage curtains. While Reitman is esteemed for such Oscar winners as Juno (which also doubled as a $143.3M grossing movie) and Up in the Air which notched six Oscar noms (three for Reitman in screenplay, directing and best picture categories), he’s also had his fair share of niche misfires, read his 2018 Hugh Jackman pic about Gary Hart’s scandal ridden presidential election bid back in the 1980s, The Front Runner ($2M), the schmaltzy Kate Winslet-Josh Brolin 2013 romance Labor Day ($13.3M) and the off-beat 2018 mommy-nanny Charlize Theron-Mackenzie Davis mystery Tully ($9.3M).
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But with Saturday Night, Reitman is back to form per several critics and awards season pundits who savored it last night in Telluride. The pic will make its international premiere in TIFF on Tuesday, Sept. 10.
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Deadline’s Awards Editor and Chief Film Critic Pete Hammond declared that Reitman “nailed it” in casting the movie, including 80 speaking roles, with the likes of Gabriel LaBelle as Michaels, Dyan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Willem Dafoe as NBC exec David Tebet, Cory Michael Smith’s “spot-on Chevy Chase”; Lamorne Morris’s Garrett Morris, Matt Wood’s John Belushi and Succession‘sNicholas Braun doing double duty as Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman.
Hammond also says Saturday Night is a “a masterful movie comedy firing on all cylinders” and that it’s also “a suspense thriller too.”
“One false move and this whole ambitious soufflé could have fallen, but Reitman steers this all in style creating on the great moviesaboutshow business I have ever seen,” sums up Hammond.
Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri was intrigued, but cognizant of the creative license needed to heighten the tick-tock drama, writing, “Saturday Nightmight not be factually accurate, but it feels spiritually true.” The reviewer says that LaBelle “has just the right deer-in-the-headlights anti-charisma to pull off Michaels; he at no point seems to be a man with a plan, and we enjoy watching him squirm.”
Variety Senior Awards Editor Clayton Davis adds, “#SaturdayNight sizzles for 96 minutes. Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan’s script crackles, bringing laughs and one-line zingers. The cast pops with Gabrielle LaBelle, Tommy Dewey, and Lamorne Morris standing out. A best picture worthy #Telluride premiere has entered the chat. Loved.”
Beams Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone, “Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night is a return to form for the director, and might even be his best film. It’s certainly on par with Up in the Air and Thank You for Smoking. It really hits its stride in the last act and soars.”
KTLA’s Scott Mantz exclaimed, “LIVE from #TELLURIDE, it’s “SATURDAY NIGHT” & it’s AMAZING! Really fun, hilarious, adrenaline-fueled, mood-setting, fly-on-the-wall look at the last 90 chaotic minutes leading up to the very 1st episode of SNL! EXCELLENT ensemble cast! One of director JASON REITMAN’S very BEST!”
Sony believes, and has been a practitioner of, keeping adult non-tentpole movies alive. They believe there’s still a demand for them on the big screen as streaming has encroached on theatrical’s turf. Case in point, pre-Covid, Greta Gerwig’s Oscar winner Little Women, which became an awards season event earning $108.1M, and most recently this summer, the Culver City lot brought the romance drama back alive with the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni title It Ends With Us which has racked up close to $136M and counting.
Last fall, Sony made a go at awards season and adults with the GameStop David vs. Goliath everyday joe traders vs. Wall Street institutions story. However, due to the actors strike, it was hard to give the pic a profile during its TIFF world premiere, and theatrical run, grossing just under $14M.
However, this year, that’s not a problem with Saturday Night. The movie hits theaters on Oct. 11, which is the same date of the legendary NBC comedy show’s first-ever broadcast in 1975. SNL celebrates its 50th anniversary on NBC in 2025.
