‘Lorne’ Documentary on Lorne Michaels Caps a Long Streak of Recent ‘SNL’ Films

There have been a staggering number of recent documentaries about just everyone who has made an impact on “Saturday Night Live.” Perhaps incredibly, or perhaps because he was waiting for a filmmaker like Morgan Neville to roll around, the head honcho at “SNL” Lorne Michaels has not agreed to a documentary about his life until now.

Focus Features announced today that it will release “Lorne,” a feature documentary about the creator of “Saturday Night Live,” whom, though he’s very well known, has largely stayed behind the camera and has always been a reluctant figurehead over the past five decades. He hasn’t gotten a full soup to nuts film about his life before, but that changes in a couple of months. Focus will release the film theatrically on April 17 in the U.S.

Neville, who has another documentary on Paul McCartney coming out next week, is directing the film and secured interviews with Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney, Andy Samberg, Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock, and many more all speaking about Michaels’ legacy. And we’re sure most of them will have their own impersonations of him too.

Just to give an impression of how many “SNL” docs there have been in recent years, there’s CNN’s Chevy Chase doc, “Will & Harper” about trans writer Harper Steele’s friendship with Will Ferrell, “Downey Wrote That” about longtime “SNL” writer Jim Downey, 2020’s “Belushi” from director R.J. Cutler, and of course a string of “SNL 50” docs, most notably Questlove’s about the history of music at “SNL.”

For Michaels, any reflective documentary will surely make people ask more questions about who will replace him when he finally retires. He told The New York Times almost a year ago to the date that ““I may be wrong…But I don’t feel I’m done.” Still, people have thrown around names like Tina Fey or Seth Meyers as viable replacements for Michaels once he’s ready to step aside.

Neville of course has more biographical documentaries than there are “SNL” docs. He won the Oscar for “20 Feet From Stardom,” but since then he’s been behind films on Fred Rogers, Anthony Bourdain, Pharrell Williams, Steve Martin, Bono and The Edge, and Keith Richards. This is his fourth film with Focus Features after “Piece By Piece,” “Roadrunner,” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.” “Piece By Piece” from 2024 was a documentary told entirely in the form of LEGOs about the life of Williams, and it made $10.7 million globally.

Focus also has another documentary coming out next month that just premiered at Sundance, “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.”