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WE ♥ DOCS

James Franco's 'Saturday Night Live' Doc is Finally Getting Released

by Ethan Anderton
September 24, 2014
Source: James Franco

It's been over four years since we heard about an unprecedented documentary film directed by James Franco that went behind the scenes of the iconic late night sketch series "Saturday Night Live." The documentary is simply called Saturday Night, and it has been awaiting release for years after playing at film festivals like SXSW in 2010. Back in 2013, the documentary was reported to have moved to Focus Features after Oscilloscope Laboratories was unable to do anything with it, but we haven't heard when we might be able to finally see the film. But that changed today as Franco announced the release, and it's soon.

Here's what James Franco said about Saturday Night on his Twitter account:

THE SNL DOCUMENTARY is finally coming out!!! On HULU! This FRIDAY! Watch my documentary about the… http://t.co/i9D6ebVKwR

— James Franco (@JamesFrancoTV) September 24, 2014

That's right, folks, Saturday Night will premiere on Hulu this Friday. At this time it's not clear if you'll have to be a Hulu Plus subscriber to be able to stream, or if it'll be one of Hulu's free offerings. Either way, we're glad to see this documentary see the light of day. Executive producer Lorne Michaels gave Franco surprising access to "SNL" since he was shooting the documentary as part of his work at NYU. The episode in question was hosted by John Malkovich just before Christmastime on December 6th, 2008, and the doc chronicles what it's like to make an episode from beginning to end.

What makes this really cool is that Franco had hosted at "Saturday Night Live" before and had a good working relationship with many of the cast members, so this should be a much more laid back chronicle of "SNL" as opposed to a complete stranger filming behind the scenes and making everyone nervous. I've been waiting for this documentary for years, and I cannot wait to see it. It's a great way to hype things up for the 40th season of the show which premieres this Saturday with Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt hosting for the first time. In the meantime, we're hoping a trailer for Saturday Night surfaces soon. Cool?

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