Weekend Update host Colin Jost has been working at Saturday Night Live for twenty years. He’s had multiple stints as Head Writer and has long been put forth as a possible successor for Lorne Michaels if/ when the creator and longtime showrunner steps down. If you listen to some hardcore SNL fans, however, his tenure on the show could be coming to an end.
The rumblings started this past week when SNL announced its upcoming hosts. We’re getting Walton Goggins and Scarlett Johansson to close the season. Now, as much as I love Walton Goggins, we can set him to the side. The person that matters is Scarlett Johansson, who, of course, is Colin Jost’s wife. She’s hosting the Season Finale, which will, according to the Internet, also mark Jost’s 200th time doing Weekend Update. There are many who believe that’s not a coincidence, and she may have been brought in to help give her husband the epic send-off he deserves.
For a long time, Jost seemed like an SNL lifer. Any talk of him leaving the show seemed detached from reality, but if you listen to some of his recent interviews, it doesn’t really feel like such a remote possibility anymore. He made an appearance at Brown University last week as part of a lecture series and was interviewed on a wide variety of subjects, including his parents who met at Brown. He also took questions from students. Here’s how the campus paper summed up the answer he apparently gave on his future…
As Jost continues his work on SNL he said he’s overwhelmed by the prospect of what’s next in his career. Between writing a television pilot, running an advertising agency, writing and acting in films, writing novels and filming a stand-up comedy special, he said there are a lot of unknowns in his future.
That’s not exactly a pledge to stay at SNL the rest of his life, and it’s not that far from other answers he’s given the past few years which have been more non-commital. Last year, he told Howard Stern he just makes a decision on whether to return each season based on whether he’s still enjoying himself or not. That doesn’t sound like someone who has agreed to stay forever or told the network he’ll take over the whole show someday.
Based on all of the above, it’s not surprising that the rumblings about Jost leaving have gotten louder and louder the past few days. One of the top comments underneath SNL’s social post announcing its upcoming hosts was about it being the end of Jost’s tenure. A Reddit thread speculating the season finale will be his last episode got more than a thousand interactions. There have been some articles asking whether he’s about to walk off into the sunset, and if you look on X, there are plenty of random user posts from people convinced he’s done.
But whether any of this actually means he’s done is a huge question mark. Just because there’s smoke doesn’t mean there’s fire, and you could just as easily make a case that everyone is really overreacting here. Scarlett Johansson is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and she’s the star of the new Jurassic Park movie, which comes out this summer. She also has a long history of hosting and making appearances on the show and is an obvious candidate to host the season finale. Having her on is far from some personal favor to Jost.
In addition, while the comedian has been a little vague on his SNL future, he’s also been very clear that he absolutely loves hosting Weekend Update. He’s scaled back his responsibilities on the show some over the past few seasons and has been open about finding a better work life balance. Yes, he has a ton of other projects going he’s working on, but the fantastic thing about SNL and the reason why a lot of buzzy comedians stay for a long time is because the show gives everyone an extended summer and plenty of weeks off to work on other things.
Long story short, some fans are convinced Jost is about to leave SNL, but there are plenty of others who think people are making a big to do about nothing. I tend to think he’s probably going to stick around, but there’s certainly a little smoke here and it wouldn’t be a shock if he left. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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