Back in the late 2000s, director Jason Reitman, fresh off “Juno” and “Up in the Air,” was frequently referred to as a modern equivalent to Preston Sturges. It was high praise for the auteur and firmly suggested that Reitman had escaped from his father’s shadow, comedy director legend Ivan Reitman. His notoriety extended to an Oscar hot streak that included helming two Best Picture Oscar nominees (“Juno” and “Up In The Air”) back-to-back. However, Reitman’s Academy Award presence whittled down to nothing after those two films and he’s struggled to find his way back ever since.
It’s been a dry spell for Reitman since “Up in the Air,” with none of his subsequent titles scoring Best Picture nominations or even being invited back to the Academy Awards for a single nomination. However, there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon with his latest feature, “Saturday Night.” While it’s far from a guarantee, there are reasons for Reitman to be optimistic. Could “Saturday Night” be the film to reignite his Oscar success?
One thing that helps “Saturday Night’s” quest for potential Oscar recognition is simply the fact the Academy used to love Reitman. Across three Oscar ceremonies, Reitman scored a quartet of Oscar nominations as a producer, director, and screenwriter. That range of nominations indicates Reitman’s struck a chord with a variety of Academy voters, which bodes well for “Saturday Night” at least getting on their radar. Granted, the Academy voting body circa 2024 drastically differs from the one that dubbed “Up in the Air” a Best Picture nominee. Still, that reputation’s a good place to start, especially in a race this fluid.
It doesn’t hurt that “Saturday Night” is right up Oscar voters’ alley. This saga about putting on the very first episode of “Saturday Night Live” is the sort of nostalgic showbiz-centric motion picture for which Academy voters typically go gaga over. A movie full of references to Dan Aykroyd, Jim Henson, Andy Kaufman, and other pivotal 1970s pop culture figures could be the hot ticket to getting voters enamored and wistful. Films like “The Artist,” “La La Land,“ and “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood“ rode nostalgia from older eras of pop culture to Oscar glory. Who’s to say that “Saturday Night” couldn’t do the same?
Sony/Columbia Pictures, the distributor of “Saturday Night,“ certainly sees oodles of potential in the feature. The film debuted on August 31st, 2024, with a splashy Telluride Film Festival premiere a month before its limited theatrical release run began. Since then, Sony has brought “Saturday Night“ to the Toronto International Film Festival and has screened the film for folks far and wide. The studio behind previous modern Oscar heavyweights like “Little Women“ and “American Hustle” is certainly showing off “Saturday Night“ as if it has the goods. It’s not easy to imagine that such enthusiasm proves infectious enough to win over certain Oscar voters.
Of course, for every conceptual element of “Saturday Night“ that could make it a shoo-in for a slew of Oscar nominations, other qualities could hold it back. For one thing, this is a movie rooted in vintage television, not old-timey cinema. Will a look back at formative small-screen programming have as much sway to Oscar voters as films about pivotal cinema legends? Plus, Reitman’s quality track record over the last decade (which extends to some of the mixed responses “Saturday Night“ has received) could mean the bloom is off his rose with the Academy. He’s no longer the fresh new kid on the block on a creative hot streak and instead is now the guy fighting his way back in.
If the Academy ignored an acclaimed Reitman directorial effort like “Young Adult“ or “Tully, why would they embrace “Saturday Night?“ Not helping matters is the fact that the cast is comprised of younger performers. That’s an understandable choice, given that this movie is chronicling the nascent days of eventual comedy legends. However, folks like Gabriel LaBelle, Cooper Hoffman, Rachel Sennott, and Dylan O’Brien currently don’t have a lot of cache with Academy voters.
Some movies get a major awards season boost simply thanks to casting iconic fixtures of the awards season. Emphasizing fresher faces could deprive “Saturday Night” of another chance to immediately ingratiate itself with Oscar voters. Then, there’s the Sony part of the equation. Since the 86th Academy Awards, Sony/Columbia Pictures has only scored two Best Picture nominees (“Little Women” and “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood“). Both were nominated at the same ceremony, meaning there’s only been one out of the last ten Oscar ceremonies where this studio has cracked the Best Picture category. However, if Sony decides to aim low and go for a Best Original Screenplay nomination without a Best Picture nomination instead for “Saturday Night,” then they might still have a shot.
The Best Picture problem though could indicate Sony/Columbia films innately have more trouble getting onto the radar of Oscar voters. Such a track record might not be ideal for “Saturday Night,” which could use an A24/Searchlight Pictures in awards season campaigning prowess to help it overcome things like Reitman’s recent mixed track record. Then again, a studio’s Oscar history is solid until it abruptly isn’t. NEON had no Best Picture Oscar winners…and then “Parasite” came to town. A streaming movie never scored the Best Picture Oscar win, but then Apple TV+ had “CODA.” These things are bizarrely concrete yet fluid. That paradox could mean Sony/Columbia’s awards season strategists beat the odds and get “Saturday Night” some significant Oscar nominations.
Indeed, the fact that there’s already even talk, let alone pronounced discussions, over “Saturday Night’s” Oscar potential suggests the film is already off to a significantly better awards season start than the ones endured by 2010s Reitman films “Men, Women, & Children” and “The Front Runner.” A lot has changed since 2009. It’s fair to say that, among those shifts, is the reality that Jason Reitman is no longer considered the preeminent heir to the Preston Sturges throne. However, there are many promising factors in play surrounding “Saturday Night,” suggesting that it has a shot at least of restoring Reitman to his former Oscar nominations glory. Don’t count on anything before the cameras start rolling…just ask anyone involved with putting on an episode of “Saturday Night Live.”
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