Lights , camera, chaos
JASON REITMAN ON BOTTLING BEDLAM FOR HIS SNL LOV E LETTER SATURDAY NIGHT
WORDS MIKE RYAN
IN 1975, SATURDAY Night Live was… well, a show on ABC called Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell. It starred the controversial sportscaster and comedy group The Prime Time Players, featuring unknowns Bill Murray and Christopher Guest. It lasted 18 episodes, but temporarily prevented a counterculture comedy show on NBC featuring the Not Ready For Prime Time Players (yes, a direct dig) from using the title it would make famous for the next 50 years. Jason Reitman’s new film, Saturday Night, as it was known then, chronicles the intense 90 minutes right before this ragtag show —that needed a miracle to succeed —went to air. Reitman talks Empire through the gestation of the project.