Pete Davidson, Ice Spice and Bad Bunny will help kick off the final season of “Saturday Night Live,” weeks after the writers’ strike ended in late September.
NBC Announced On Wednesday, season 49 of “SNL” would premiere on Oct. 14, and Davidson would return as host for the second time this year. Ice Spice, best known for her hits “In Ha Mood” and “Princess Diana,” will be her musical guest at her Studio 8H debut.
On October 21, Bad Bunny will return to “SNL,” pulling double duty as the show’s host and musical guest. It will be the first time that the Latin pop star presents the sketch series and the second time that he performs. He took the stage for the first time in February 2021.
The network also revealed on Wednesday that the entire cast, including Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim and Chloe Fineman, would return for season 49. Comedian Chloe Troast joins the cast as a featured player this season.
On September 24, the Writers Guild of America and major Hollywood studios reached a tentative agreement that would end the strike, after months of tension and uncertainty. Actors are still on strike, but SAG-AFTRA on Wednesday expressed support for guild members who are part of the “SNL” cast.
“They do not violate SAG-AFTRA strike rules and we support them in meeting their contractual obligations,” the union said in a statement shared with The Times. “The show is a non-dramatic SAG-AFTRA production under a separate agreement that is not subject to the union’s strike order.”
The statement also said that several “SNL” cast members had “contractual obligations to the show prior to the strike.”
“By not showing up for work, our artists may be considered violators of contract and the Union is prohibited from advising them not to work,” the SAG-AFTRA statement added.
The double strike in Hollywood, with the writers’ strike that began in May, paralyzed the production and promotion of film and television projects. Since then, both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have met with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major Hollywood studios, to address a number of issues, including waste and the growing use of intelligence artificial in the entertainment industry.
In recent weeks, several television shows have worked to get back to normal. Late-night TV hosts Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver premiered their first episodes in five months this week.
The daytime slot is also returning to programming as Drew Barrymore, Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson announce new fall premiere dates for their talk shows. Even with the WGA strike over, returns to the air aren’t going to be exactly as planned for everyone, and Barrymore’s writers are refusing to return.
Times staff writers Wendy Lee and Christi Carras contributed to this report.
