Mean Girls: The Musical, based on Tina Fey’s 2004 movie, is itself coming to the big screen. The musical directed by Casey Nicholaw, which was nominated for 12 Tonys including best musical, opened on Broadway in 2018 to strong reviews.
Mean Girls, the movie, was a big hit when it hit theaters in 2004, pulling in over $100 million, and remains a cultural touchstone to the day. The film, written by Fey and directed by Mark Waters, tells the story of Cady Heron who, after growing up on an African savanna, returns to suburban Illinois where she challenges the popularity of the ruthless Regina George and her cadre of sycophantic followers, The Plastics. The film’s cast is stacked with an impressive list of names including Rachel McAdams, Lizzy Caplan, Amanda Seyfried and, its star, Lindsay Lohan. The musical, which Fey also wrote with composer (and Fey’s husband) Jeff Richmond and lyricist Nell Benjamin, follows the same plot as the film. Songs with titles like “What’s Wrong With Me?” and “Revenge Party” convey the musical’s darkly satirical view of adolescence.
Now, that musical is going full circle and becoming a film. As reported by Variety, Tina Fey, Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin are adapting the stage show into a movie, once again produced by Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels (who worked on both previous versions) and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
“I’m very excited to bring ‘Mean Girls’ back to the screen,” Fey said in a statement, going on to comment on the enduring appeal of the story: “They are my Marvel Universe and I love them dearly.” There’s no word yet on production timeline, casting, or release date for the Paramount Pictures project, nor has any director been attached.
While Mean Girls: The Musical: The Movie could be seen as just another remake, the stage source offers some intriguing opportunities for reinvention. The musical has a larger cast of cliques, an updated Generation Z skew and fresh relationships, meaning the film could be a very distinct experience.
The Mean Girls musical film adaptation joins other Broadway hits like Little Shop of Horrors, Sunset Boulevard, and West Side Story in making a jump to the big screen. Lin Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights is due in theaters in June, and a recent trailer has received positive reactions online. Musical adaptation can be tricky to get right, as the producers of Universal’s Cats recently discovered when the $100 million film opened to a disinterested public and critical backlash. But Mean Girls is already on the right track with Fey and her co-creators at the helm.
More: 10 Hit Movies You Didn’t Know Were Turned Into Stage Musicals
Source: Variety
