Mindy Kaling’s movie Late Night gets a release date

Mindy Kaling’s movie Late Night has been given a release date after an impressive showing at Sundance.

There is no better time than right now to be a fan of late night television. With a variety of shows each with a unique host, there is something for everyone. And now the late night genre is being adapted for the big screen thanks to Mindy Kaling.

Kaling is the writer and star of Late Night, a movie set behind-the-scenes of a late night talk show. Kaling will play Molly Patel, a writer hired to help save the show hosted by Emma Thompson’s character Katherine Newburry. A more detailed synopsis can be found below, via the Sundance website:

"Molly, wanting to prove she’s not simply a diversity hire who’s disrupting the comfort of the brotherhood, is determined to help Katherine by revitalizing her show and career—and possibly effect even bigger change at the same time."

Joining Kaling and Thompson in the cast are John Lithgow, The Mindy Project writer Ike Barinholtz, fellow Office alum Amy Ryan, as well as Hugh Dancy and Reid Scott.

Late Night, directed by Nisha Ganatra, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Amazon Studios then paid a record-setting $13 million for U.S. distribution rights. As if coming from Mindy Kaling wasn’t enough, that should tell you to expect a lot from Late Night. The film will be released in theaters on June 7, 2019.

Of course people know Kaling from her work on The Office  and most recently in Ocean’s 8Late Night with Conan O’Brien. But she is certainly no stranger to late night television. She was an intern at  before becoming one of the best guests in late night.

These type of “behind-the-scenes” premises have proven to be popular and successful. Tina Fey’s 30 Rock stands out as the best example. We’ll get a real-world example soon with the release of Inside Conan, a podcast about life in the Team Coco offices hosted by two Conan writers.

Whether late night television can translate to films has yet to be seen. Plenty of movies have used scenes set at shows like Saturday Night Live or Jimmy Kimmel Live!. But few examples exist of a movie set exclusively in the world of late night.

The 1996 movie The Late Shift did it’s best to capture the drama of Jay Leno and David Letterman battling it out for late night supremacy. But Kaling’s fictional setting and years of experience as a writer should provide an even more accurate and entertaining portrayal.

Late Night hits theaters on June 7, 2019. Expect a trailer to be released soon enough. But the real fun will be when Mindy Kaling starts making the rounds on late night to promote the film. Every host will surely have something to say about Kaling’s perspective on the genre. Hopefully things kick off with Kaling returning to Conan but we’ll have to wait and see!