As a die-hard fan of Saturday Night Live (SNL), I’ve been tickled pink by their ingenious take on movie trailers over the years. From the hilariously absurd to the spot-on satire, SNL has consistently managed to entertain and leave audiences gasping for air with their side-splitting skits.
People find enjoyable watching movie previews, even for fictitious films. There’s no one quite like the team at Saturday Night Live when it comes to crafting these humorous, non-existent film trailers. They have a knack for creating some of the funniest cinematic parodies and poking fun at cultural phenomena or current events by depicting them as movies. Here are some of their most memorable works in this area.
The Beygency
In an SNL Season 39 sketch, host Andrew Garfield portrays a character facing repercussions due to appreciating merely most of Beyoncé Knowles’ music. The secretive “Beygency” is reminiscent of the destiny-managing figures from the 2011 movie, The Adjustment Bureau; they gradually remove our lead character from society as he refuses to swear loyalty to “Queen B.
The Group Hopper
It often feels like every movie adaptation from young adult dystopian novels, like “The Hunger Games” films and the “Divergent” series, follow a similar pattern, as humorously depicted in this Season 40 SNL trailer. Titled “The Group Hopper“, this parody of “The Maze Runner” features Pete Davidson as the predestined hero guiding a group of youngsters stuck in a maze, controlled by an extravagant dictator in a post-apocalyptic world.
The Apocalypse
If director Garry Marshall had placed one of his romantic-comedy ensembles (like “Valentine’s Day” or “New Year’s Eve”) in an end-of-the-world scenario, it would have resembled a film titled “The Apocalypse.” Essentially serving as a platform for the Season 37 cast of Saturday Night Live to showcase their top celebrity impressions – such as Kristen Wiig portraying Drew Barrymore and Bill Hader impersonating Alan Alda – this sketch hints at a movie that seems just as (if not more) engaging as “Valentine’s Day,” “New Year’s Eve,” or “Mother’s Day.
Grouch
In a period when hard-edged tales about villain origins were extremely popular, notably 2019’s Joker, Saturday Night Live envisioned what it would be like if filmmaker Todd Phillips’ reinvention of the Batman villain was applied to a character from Sesame Street. David Harbour plays Oscar, a garbage man on the brink, in the mock trailer for Grouch. This production also portrays Big Bird as an exotic dancer, The Count as an addict, and Elmo as a dealer.
Brutal Marriage Movie
In a time crunch, the mock trailer for “Brutal Marriage Movie” is certainly noteworthy. It delivers an amusingly spot-on spoof of films such as Netflix’s “Marriage Story” or Ryan Gosling’s “Blue Valentine“. In this skit, Rami Malek and Heidi Gardner portray a troubled couple who, despite their numerous problems, are reluctant to split up. Instead, they opt to argue a bit more before possibly rekindling their love.
Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun To Re Ro
Any non-English person who has ever watched a Guy Ritchie movie or other British crime drama has likely struggled to understand the dialogue through the actors’ thick accents. The need to put on subtitles during these sorts of films is acknowledged in SNL‘s trailer for a fake film called Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro, which stars a real-life Brit, host Russell Brand, poking fun at his own people alongside Bill Hader and Fred Armisen indulging in Cockney-sounding gibberish.
Give Us All Our Daughters Back
Numerous top-tier action films from the early 21st Century center around a tough hero battling to recover their abducted child or avenge their child’s murder, like “Taken” and “Kill Bill”. The parody trailer for a thriller titled “Give Us All Or Daughters Back” from SNL presents the perfect film according to this theme by enlisting actors such as Liam Neeson (portrayed by Taran Killam), Uma Thurman (played by host Christina Applegate), and other action movie stars in a single team that resembles “The Expendables”.
Djesus Uncrossed
As a devoted admirer, I’d rephrase that intriguingly:
The Midnight Coterie Of Sinister Intruders
A horror film in the style of a Wes Anderson movie sounds intriguing, but we cannot deny it would probably turn out a lot like SNL‘s faux trailer for The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders. The G-rated home invasion thriller narrated by Alec Baldwin stars Owen Wilson (host Edward Norton) and Gwyneth Paltrow (Noel Wells) as a couple who react a little too calmly to the well-dressed murderous gang surrounding their delicately decorated, ’70s-era home.
Bambi
In 2015, Saturday Night Live proposed an ingenious concept for Disney’s live-action adaptation of Bambi. The fictional trailer featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a Five-Timer’s Club member, portraying the title character. In this reinterpretation, Johnson and his woodland companions, including Vin Diesel as Thumper, take up arms against the hunting community in a manner reminiscent of the Fast and Furious series, seeking revenge in an unconventional yet entertaining twist on the classic tale.
Lesbian Period Drama
In reaction to films such as “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and “Ammonite”, Saturday Night Live (SNL) created their own trailer for a period drama featuring lesbian relationships, which they titled “Lesbian Period Drama“. The hosts, Carey Mulligan and Heidi Gardner, portrayed two actresses who refused to wear makeup as they played characters in a secret romance set in a 19th-century coastal village.
The Fault In Our Stars 2: The Ebola In Our Everything
In a time when Ebola outbreaks in the U.S. were causing widespread worry, the release of “The Fault in Our Stars,” a YA novel adaptation about two terminally ill teens falling in love, coincided. To capitalize on this, SNL created a mock trailer for a sequel titled “The Ebola in Our Everything“. In this fictional continuation, Taran Killam portrays a cancer-stricken teen who falls in love with Sarah Silverman, characterizing her as a young woman afflicted with the Ebola virus.
Black Widow: Age Of Me
Back in the day, before Scarlett Johansson graced our screens with her solo Marvel movie in 2021, Saturday Night Live envisioned a unique take on a Black Widow film, something that might have been produced by Hollywood back then. Instead of the typical, high-octane comic book transformation, Black Widow: Age of Me was a romantic comedy where I, Scarlett Johansson, returned as Natasha Romanoff, juggling my job at a fashion magazine with an unconventional romance with the mischievous android, Ultron.
Firelight
Picture this scenario: If the writer of the Twilight saga, Stephanie Meyer, had been inspired not by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but by Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein. The resulting story might bear a resemblance to SNL’s fictional trailer for Firelight, where Taylor Swift portrays a teenager smitten with a creature, played by Bill Hader, who is pieced together from various body parts.
White Christmas
The movie “White Christmas,” released in 1954 and featuring Bing Crosby, is distinct from it. Instead, imagine a holiday film tailored predominantly for Black audiences, yet primarily starring Caucasian actors – a concept that “White Christmas” parallels but does not represent. In the Saturday Night Live sketch, Paul Rudd portrays various characters, one of whom mimics the character Madea, created by Tyler Perry.
Titey
Some Disney movies like Pocahontas are based on historical events, but they don’t show things exactly as they happened in real life. In a 1998 sketch from “Saturday TV Funhouse,” they humorously suggested how they might create a children-friendly, fantastical version of the Titanic disaster. They came up with a fake trailer for a movie called Titey, where Jason Alexander voices the ship and Whoopi Goldberg voices the iceberg.
Pilates
Some people like to joke that taking a Pilates class feels a lot like torture. SNL uses that as the basis for a faux horror movie trailer from Season 49 that goes further by poking fun at the culture surrounding the fitness technique, featuring host and former cast member Kristen Wiig as an enthusiastic instructor and model and actor Kaia Gerber as herself.
The Squad
It is barely a joke anymore to say that Taylor Swift has achieved world domination, but a fake SNL trailer for a movie called The Squad exaggerates her influence to apocalyptic levels. The thriller, helmed by Children of Men director Alfonso Cuarón, imagines a dystopian future in which most of the world’s popular has become indoctrinated into the pop star’s famous “squad.”
A Stab At Love
The 2023 Halloween special on SNL showcased a playful sneak peek of an exclusive Hallmark-style romance movie, ideal for autumn evenings… and for people who appreciate a dash of horror as well. Titled A Stab at Love, the film features Chloe Fineman as a female character who revisits her old hometown, only to discover that her high school sweetheart (portrayed by host Nate Bargatze) is actually a masked murderer.
Me
In a humorous imitation of Spike Jonze’s award-winning sci-fi romance film, “Her”, Jonah Hill portrays a man who develops affection for his virtual assistant, an entity that not only mirrors his character but also mimics his voice. The act concludes with Michael Cera, Hill’s co-star from “Superbad”, making an appearance as a stand-in, hired by the OS to facilitate intimate moments between them.
Mario Kart
The sketch on SNL titled Mario Kart is actually a mock TV show trailer, but it’s so clever that it deserves to be featured. Pedro Pascal, the host, humorously mocks his role in The Last of Us by portraying another well-known video game character. In essence, he imagines what it would be like if Nintendo’s iconic racing franchise, Mario Kart, were transformed into a gritty, post-apocalyptic dramatic series.
Space Mistakes
In “Space Mistakes”, the host Chance the Rapper takes on the role of an astronaut preparing for a vital journey into outer space. True to the theme hinted by the title, as is often the case in films about space exploration (like “Apollo 13” and “The Martian”), a series of unexpected mishaps occur.
Downton Abbey
In a playful twist, Saturday Night Live (SNL) satirically mocked the subtle tension of the popular British show Downton Abbey, even creating a parody trailer for its film adaptation from 2019. But as the skit wrapped up, it turned out to be an advertisement for Joker, suggesting that there’s more action and excitement in that movie since “something significant takes place” within it.
American Girl Doll Movie Trailer
In simpler terms, some movies inspired by the well-known American Girl Doll collection have been made, but none as boldly self-mocking as Greta Gerwig’s 2023 hit film Barbie. The comedy sketch show SNL has created a mock trailer that imagines a movie where iconic doll characters like the Great Depression-era Kit Kittredge and the slavery era Addy Walker come together. This movie could potentially be too historically accurate for younger viewers to watch comfortably.
Daveheart
During his appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) Season 35, Gerard Butler playfully referenced his Scottish roots a few times. One instance was a skit where he portrayed the timid younger brother of the character he played in Braveheart, titled “Braveheart 2: The Wallace’s Baa-tle,” with Gerard Butler reprising his role as the cowardly David Wallace from the Best Picture Oscar winner.
Father Of The Bride Part 8
In Season 48 of Saturday Night Live, Steve Martin and Martin Short, who have been friends and working together for a long time, joined forces to co-host the show. They also took on their roles from the Father of the Bride films during this stint. Additionally, Kieran Culkin, known for his role in Succession, made an appearance in a cameo as Matty Banks. In one sketch, Heidi Gardner’s character Annie is pictured getting married for the eighth time, and Culkin plays a part in this imagined wedding.
Beastly
In Season 36 of SNL, I stepped into the shoes of an awkward, quirky character named Declan – or so they called me. The more amusing of the two skits took aim at the contemporary remake of “Beauty and the Beast,” specifically the movie “Beastly” from 2011. In this film, a self-absorbed, wealthy lead character gets transformed by a sorceress into someone who looks like me (credited as Gene Hackman).
The Fruiting
Just like several captivating horror movie previews, the teaser for SNL’s The Fruiting initially seems like a charming advertisement for fresh produce. But don’t be fooled; it swiftly reveals its hidden side as a spine-tingling haunted house narrative. However, what follows next is far from chilling – instead, it unveils the show’s true nature as an utterly preposterous comedy, where an unfortunate family encounters sentient fruit causing havoc.
Unstoppable
One of the best movies about trains, director Tony Scott’s Unstoppable, stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pine as an engineer and a conductor trying to stop a runaway train holding explosive chemicals from reaching the city. Shortly after it came out, SNL aired a faux trailer that made great use of Jay Pharoah’s Washington impression and sent-up the action film’s cliched annoyed veteran/cocky rookie pairing, among other funny detials.
Gandhi And The Bandit
Occasionally, crafting a great SNL film spoof lies in reimagining a movie’s plot featuring someone who wouldn’t normally be there. A memorable instance from the early ’80s is a mockery of Smokey and the Bandit, where instead of Burt Reynolds, the daring character is portrayed by Mohandas Gandhi (Tim Kazurinsky).
Be My Quaran-tine
During the Covid-19 outbreak, SNL cast members chose to create skits from their personal homes instead, leading to numerous sketches centered around the tedium of being in lockdown. For example, Alex Moffat featured in a trailer for a romantic comedy titled “Quarantine Romance,” where a workaholic trapped in his apartment finds love unexpectedly – with himself.
The Day Beyoncé Turned Black
As Beyoncé increasingly showcased her cultural roots in her songs and videos, such as “Formation”, it stirred some controversy among her non-African American fans. This unusual reaction to the issue was humorously portrayed by SNL in a trailer for a movie called The Day Beyoncé Became African American, depicting mass panic among white people due to their unexpected discovery of the pop star’s racial background.
As you can see, the SNL cast excels at fake movie trailers, and likely always will.
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2024-10-01 19:38