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| Company type | Joint venture |
|---|---|
| Industry | Production company |
| Founded | 1997; 29 years ago (1997) |
| Products | Saturday Night Live A Night at the Roxbury Superstar The Ladies Man |
| Owners | Lorne Michaels Universal Television (formerly NBC Studios) Paramount Pictures (1997-2004) |
| Footnotes / references [1] | |
SNL Studios (also known as "Saturday Night Live Studios") is an Americanproduction company founded in 1997[2] as ajoint venture betweenSaturday Night Live creator and producerLorne Michaels,NBC Studios, and, initially,Paramount Pictures.[2][3] Paramount's part of the venture was dissolved in 2004 following NBC's merger withUniversal Pictures to formNBCUniversal. SNL Studios currently producesSaturday Night Live in association withBroadway Video (also owned by Michaels),[4] and in the past also produced movies, mainly featuringSaturday Night Live sketch characters:A Night at the Roxbury,Superstar andThe Ladies Man.
Prior to SNL Studios' formation, several films based on popularSaturday Night Live sketches were produced in addition to the series itself. The first of these wasThe Blues Brothers, released on June 20, 1980 byUniversal Pictures (24 years prior to its merger with NBC), directed byJohn Landis and starringJohn Belushi andDan Aykroyd, based ontheir band of the same name that performed on the show in sketches. The film received positive reviews from critics, grossed $115 million in theaters, and has since become acult classic. However, it was the secondSNL film,Wayne's World, released 12 years later on February 14, 1992, that would successfully kickstart the trend of films based onSNL sketches.Wanye's World starredMike Myers andDana Carvey and was based onMyers' ownSNL sketch. It grossed $183.1 million at the box office in addition to receiving positive reviews.Wayne's World, produced bySNL creatorLorne Michaels, was released byParamount Pictures, which at the time had a film production deal with Michaels. Throughout the 90's, Paramount would go on to release several titles based onSNL sketches; the only ones during that time that they weren't involved with wereIt's Pat (released byTouchstone Pictures) andBlues Brothers 2000 (released by Universal as they distributed the original movie). With the exceptions ofWayne's World andits sequel, many of these films were critically panned, and only a few were successful at the box office.
In 1997, a decision was made to create a production company centered around theSNL name; thus, SNL Studios was formed, originally established as a joint venture between Lorne Michaels, NBC Studios, and Paramount, the third of which left the venture after the NBC-Universal merger in 2004. Following the announcement of SNL Studios' creation, veteranSaturday Night Live producerMarci Klein was named as the president of SNL Studios Television in 1999, while Richard Feldman was appointed head of SNL Studios Films in June of the same year.[5]A Night at the Roxbury was the first film produced under the name, released in 1998, though no on-screen logo was used until a year later with the release ofSuperstar. SNL Studios would also proceed to take over production of theSNL series from NBC Studios beginning in 1999, with Michaels' other company,Broadway Video, remaining on board.
To date, there have been no new films produced under the label afterThe Ladies Man. Another film based onanSNL sketch,MacGruber, would be released in 2010, although it would not carry the SNL Studios name. SNL Studios continues to produce theSaturday Night Live TV show.
All films listed are distributed byParamount Pictures.
| Title | Release date |
|---|---|
| A Night at the Roxbury | October 2, 1998 |
| Superstar | October 5, 1999 |
| The Ladies Man | October 13, 2000 |
| Title | Air date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday Night Live | 1999–present | Co-production withBroadway Video; previously co-produced by NBC Productions (1975–1996) and NBC Studios (1996–1999) |