‘Saturday Night Live’ will get the origin story treatment from Jason Reitman

Toronto’s favorite son turns his eye toward New York, and back to 1975 for his next project. Jason Reitman is currently producing the next “Ghostbusters” picture with director and co-writer Gil Kenan and leads Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon (the gang, plus McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard, sent an in-costume video from the set to CinemaCon last week), but he’s got his next project lined up at Sony Pictures. 

As per Deadline, the “Juno” and “Up in the Air” director will be back behind the camera for an untitled “Saturday Night Live” opening night project. Kenan will co-write the script.

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Casting has not been announced, but somebody out there is (probably) going to be playing producer Lorne Michaels and first-episode cast members like Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, and Garrett Morris. (And John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and “SNL” asterisk George Coe.) Also, potentially, writers like Michael O’Donoghue, Al Franken, Anne Beatts, Alan Zweibel, and others. The first guest on “SNL” was George Carlin so maybe someone will be doing an impression of the comedian during his “Toledo Window Box” era, too. This is either going to be the greatest movie ever made or not!

Deadline has reported that “the screenplay is based on an extensive series of interviews conducted by Reitman and Kenan with all the living cast, writers and crew,” suggesting this is not an adaptation of Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller’s legendary “SNL” oral history book, “Live From New York.” The item also stresses that it will be an “opening night” story “counting down the minutes in real time” before going on the air. 

While Reitman’s late father, Ivan Reitman, was never officially associated with “SNL,” he is a key part of the comedy movement’s larger orbit, having directed “SNL” alum like Aykroyd and Bill Murray in films like “Meatballs,” “Stripes,” and “Ghostbusters,” and produced the Belushi-led “National Lampoon’s Animal House.” 

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