Focus Features will release “Lorne,” a documentary about “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels, this spring, the studio announced on Friday.
Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (“Won’t You Be My Neighbor”), the film goes behind the scenes with the man who created and has run “SNL” for nearly five decades. Despite the show’s place in television history, Michaels has largely stayed out of the spotlight. The documentary opens in theaters on April 17.
Focus Features holds worldwide rights, with Universal Pictures International handling international distribution.
“Lorne” features exclusive footage, archival material and candid interviews with some of “SNL’s” most iconic cast members and writers, including Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney, Andy Samberg, Conan O’Brien and Chris Rock.
This marks the fourth collaboration between Focus Features and Neville, following “Piece by Piece,” “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” and 2018’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” which won Best Documentary at the 2019 Independent Spirit Awards. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is also one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time.
Neville is producing via his A Tremolo Production alongside and Lauren Belfer. He is an Oscar, Grammy and Emmy-winning filmmaker whose 2013 film “20 Feet From Stardom” won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. He was recently nominated for an Emmy for his work on “SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night.”
His latest film, “Man on the Run,” documenting Paul McCartney’s decade-long creative surge after The Beatles, will be released by Amazon MGM on Feb. 25.
