“Mean Girls” is an American musical teen comedy film based on the Broadway musical, which in turn was based on the 2004 comedy film.
So let’s find out some trivia and facts about the film.
- Mean Girls is a 2024 American musical teen comedy film
- It is directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.
- This marks their feature directorial debuts
- From a screenplay by Tina Fey
- It is based on the Broadway musical of the same name
- In turn the musical was based on Mark Waters’s 2004 comedy film
- Both written by Fey
- And based on Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 book Queen Bees and Wannabes
- It stars Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auliʻi Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Avantika, Bebe Wood, Christopher Briney, Jenna Fischer and Busy Philipps
- While Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles from the original film
- Rapp also reprised her role from the Broadway production
- Paramount Pictures announced the film’s development in January 2020
- With Fey returning to write the screenplay and serve as a producer alongside Lorne Michaels, who produced the 2004 film
- Composer Jeff Richmond and lyricist Nell Benjamin returned to rework their songs from the stage musical
- While Richmond also composed the film’s score
- Casting began in December 2022
- Principal photography took place in New Jersey between March and April 2023
- The film was originally set to premiere on the streaming service Paramount+
- But in September 2023, the distributor opted to release the film theatrically first after the film received positive test scores
- Mean Girls premiered in New York City on January 8, 2024
- It was theatrically released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on January 12
- It received generally mixed reviews from critics
- On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the filmh holds 72% rating
- Based on 129 critics’ reviews
- With an average rating of 6.4/10
- The website’s consensus reads: “Preserving the essence of the original while adding a few new wrinkles—not to mention musical numbers—Mean Girls is a sweet (if slight) update with an outstanding cast”
- Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 58 out of 100
- Based on 40 critics
- Indicating “mixed or average” reviews
- In the United States and Canada, Mean Girls was released alongside The Beekeeper and The Book of Clarence
- It is projected to gross $27–30 million from 3,791 theaters in its opening weekend
- It made $3.25 million from Thursday night previews
- In 2013, Tina Fey announced that a stage musical adaptation of Mean Girls was in the works
- The musical premiered in 2017 in Washington, D.C., and later transferred to Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre in 2018
- Fey wrote the book of the show, while her husband, Jeff Richmond, composed the music with lyrics written by Nell Benjamin
- The show received positive reviews from critics
- It was nominated for twelve awards at the 72nd Tony Awards, including Best Musical
- In January 2020, Fey stated that a film adaptation of the stage musical was in active development
- In September 2021, Arturo Perez Jr. and Samantha Jayne signed on to direct, making the film their feature film directorial debuts
- It was also confirmed that Lorne Michaels, who produced the original film, would return to produce the musical film under Broadway Video, alongside Fey’s Little Stranger
- Principal photography took place in Middletown Township, New Jersey from March to April 2023
- To make the story’s musical form translate to the screen, changes were made to shorten the runtime compared to the stage show’s two and a half hour length and to improve on certain plot elements
- Such as shortening the length of some of the musical numbers
- Like the stage show, this film takes place during the social media age
- With the incorporation of social media and mobile technology into the plot, compared to the 2000s setting of the 2004 film
- Fourteen songs were cut for the film, including “Where Do You Belong?”, “Fearless”, “Stop”, “Whose House Is This?”, “More Is Better”, and “Do This Thing”, along with the reprise of “What’s Wrong with Me?”
- A new song, “What Ifs”, was written to replace “It Roars”
- This was the introductory song for Cady in the stage version
- Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin returned to rework their songs from the stage musical for the adaptation, while Richmond also composed the film’s score
- Alongside Richmond and Benjamin, Reneé Rapp co-wrote “What Ifs”, a new song for Cady, replacing “It Roars” from the stage production
- Other songs removed from the original score include “Where Do You Belong?”, “Fearless”, “Stop”, “Whose House Is This?”, “More Is Better”, and “Do This Thing”
- The film’s soundtrack was released on January 12, 2024, by Interscope Records
- The album features twelve musical numbers from the film, and the track “Not My Fault” by Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion
- It was released on December 15, 2023 as a single
- Lindsay Lohan, who played Cady Heron in the 2004 film, makes a cameo as the moderator of the mathematics competition
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