The hit sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live is set to premiere its
45th season, and is almost reaching 50. 45 is a pretty big number, and
you can likely expect that they will go all out for the season
premiere. 5 years ago with Season 40, I began to watch it after having
seen a rerun of the previous season and some clips online of various
sketches from throughout the years. The show has become iconic in
American television, and will often go all out and find the biggest
names possible to host the show, especially for their last show prior
to Christmas and New Year’s, and also their season premiere and
finale. Big names that have hosted and performed during past premieres
include Chris Pratt with Season 40, who hosted with Arianna Grande as
the musical guest, and he was there to promote the summer blockbuster
of 2014, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and Grande had a number
of songs breaking records that same summer.
Season 40 saw many people returning for the anniversary special, but
also had James Franco and Seth Rogen appear despite their canceled
film “The Interview” which mockingly showed the two actors as
celebrity talk show hosts who are tasked with assassinating North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and the finale had Louis CK, which was his
second last time on the show prior to the sexual misconduct
allegations against him. Season 41 saw host and musical guest Miley
Cyrus, and then later in the season there was the controversial
hosting pick of the Republican Presidential Candidate and business
tycoon Donald Trump, who gave the show the highest ratings of all time
for the series. Fred Armisen, who was a former cast member on the
show, had returned to host the finale, and since then many big stars,
like Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman and Matt Damon, and Star Wars
Sequel trilogy actor Adam Driver, who hosted the premiere of the
previous season, with Kanye West as the musical guest, who made the
controversial comments about slavery being a choice while wearing a
Make America Great Again ball cap in support of President Donald
Trump.
Typically, high grossing movies will have their stars appear, and last
season Brie Larson, Idris Elba, Don Cheadle and Paul Rudd all hosted
with the 4 having appeared in Avengers Endgame, although Elba was
promoting a different project at the time, and Larson was promoting
captain Marvel’s Solo film, though it does tie into Endgame, while
Cheadle and Rudd who play War Machine and Ant-Man respectively were
there to build hype for the 4th Avengers flick. Although by the time
Rudd had hosted the season finale, Endgame was already shattering box
office records, going on to beat James Cameron’s Avatar and claim the
#1 spot of highest grossing film of all time. It might be an
opportunity for SNL to continue milking the success of Endgame to gain
more viewers during the season premiere. Additionally, Gwyneth
Paltrow who plays Tony Stark’s wife Pepper Potts in the MCU appeared
during the Weekend Update sketch during the episode hosted by Elba.
For hosts, an MCU star seems most likely, as Spider-Man: Far From Home
also made its theatrical debut on July 2nd as a follow up to Endgame,
and grossed over a billion dollars, and the director’s cut is
currently in theaters. Tom Holland plays Peter Parker in the film, and
with the Sony MCU Spider-Man debacle still going on, it might gain SNL
more attention to have a star from that film. Holland is notorious for
spoiling extremely private details about big projects, so if he is
hosting it’s surprising that we haven’t heard anything. Jake
Gyllenhaal has a play going on in New York right now which he stars
in, and could promote that along with Far From Home, as he’s a bit
more of a household name, and he plays the villain Mysterio. Josh
Brolin has hosted the show before and has had a long film career, most
notably his early work included The Goonies, and more recently in
Endgame he reprised his role as the mad titan Thanos, who really looks
like if The Rock became a California raisin. Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett
Johansen and Jeremy Renner who played Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye
could go on as well as Bradley Cooper and Chris Hemsworth, who played
Rocket Raccoon and Thor. Tom Hardy who is the actor for Venom in the
Sony film of the same name last year could host to help build hype for
the sequel which was announced in the summer, which has also teased
that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is set to appear, along with Woody
Harrelson who is set to play Carnage, and he’s another candidate as
he’s got a lot hype for his character to be fleshed out in the sequel,
as we only saw a brief cameo in the last movie.
Former cast member and Tony Stark actor Robert Downey Jr could host,
and it’d be even more interesting to see him don the Iron Man armor
one last time, even if it’s as host. Having him host in character
would be great. Other potential candidates include Samuel L Jackson
who had been in both films, and also Jon Favreau, who also directed
the remake of The Lion King. Zendaya played MJ in Far From Home, and
we could see her as a host.
Other people who could host other than the prominent MCU stars
mentioned include Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Jason Statham who were
in the Fast & Furious spinoff movie Hobbs & Shaw. Idris Elba played
the villain in the movie, although he was just featured last season,
so I don’t know how soon they might have him back, although Chris
Hemsworth and Steve Martin have hosted more than once in less than a
year. Keanu Reeves starred in John Wick Chapter 3 earlier this year
could also be an option. Australian comedian and political cometary
show host Jim Jeffries from the Jim Jeffries Show on Comedy Central
might be another person, as Season 4 of his show is happening soon.
Millie Bobby Brown who plays Eleven on the Netflix series Stranger
Things could host, as could David Harbour who plays Hopper in the
series, as the series released its 3rd Season during the summer. John
Oliver of HBO’s Last Week Tonight could host, making him the first HBO
star since the finale of Game of Thrones to appear on SNL.
James McAvoy had been featured in the horror film IT Chapter 2 which
is based on the Stephen King horror film, but he hosted earlier this
year in January, so I don’t know that he’d be the one they choose. If
anyone were to host from that film, I’d say it’s likely going to be
Bill Hader, who was a former cast member and made a cameo earlier this
year in an episode hosted by John Mulaney. Bill Skarsgard who plays
Pennywise in the film could appear. Speaking of Stephen King, the King
of Horror has a new book coming out, so SNL may lean in a different
direction and have him as host, or they may lean towards getting him
for the Halloween special.
Will Smith took to the silver screen as the Genie from the live action
remake of Disney’s Aladdin, taking over for the iconic comedian Robin
Williams after the tragic passing of Robin in 2014, and knowing
Smith’s musical talent, it’s very possible he could be both the host
and musical guest. Naomi Scott played Princess Jasmine as well, so she
could be host. Donald Glover played Simba in Lion King Remake, and it
wouldn’t be his first time as host and musical guest, as he hosted in
Season 43 prior to the release of the Hans Solo Star Wars Anthology
Film: Solo which saw him as a young Lando Calrissian, taking over for
Billy Dee Williams, and it was around the time of his hit
controversial song “This Is America.”
Musical guests could include Beyoncé, who again was in the Lion King
remake, but for me, the most likely candidate for musical guest is
rapper Lil Nas X, whose song Old Town Road peaked charts worldwide and
became quite the meme over the summer. More than likely Kanye west
won’t be returning anytime soon after the incident last year, so don’t
expect to see him back. Former Beatles member Paul McCartney could
also be a choice for musical guest. Billie Eilish is another musician
who is going viral.
Cameos for the season premiere are hard to predict, but it’s more than
likely we’ll see Alec Baldwin returning to his role as President
Donald Trump, who is running for re-election in 2020, as well as Larry
David as Democratic Candidate Bernie Sanders, who he played
prominently in Season 41 and had a minor appearance in Season 42, and
appeared as a host in Season 43 and did an impression of Sanders for a
$100,000 Pyramid Celebrity Edition sketch. Jason Sudeikis could
comeback as former Vice President and 2020 candidate Joe Biden.
There are several new cast members set to appear, including the first
prominently Asian cast member, and the most recent Asian person to
appear, with SNL having quite a few Asian actors like Awkwafina and
Sandra Oh appear last season, and also Aziz Ansari, who is of Indian
descent, and Kumail Nanjiani who is Pakistani in the two seasons prior
to 44, and Lucy Liu, who hosted over 18 years ago, with SNL seemingly
lacking any Asian performers up until recently, which may be due to
criticism over this particular issue which creator and producer Lorne
Michaels was facing. Leslie Jones, who joined just shortly after the
start of Season 40, was reportedly not returning for Season 45. The
announcement was made on August 27th.
Whoever may appear, expect them to be big, and the musical guest will
be just as huge. My bets are on an MCU star with Lil Nas X for musical
guest, but it could be anyone who I mentioned or more. Saturday Night
Live airs on NBC at 10:30 PM central time and on Global and CTV, but
be sure to watch NBC for the latest updates on the show. The premiere
is set to happen on September 28th, this weekend, so tune in and
enjoy, unless you’re easily offended by political jokes. Then really
nothing on late night TV is funny for you.