On January 8th, 2024, the highly anticipated film Mean Girls was released. The hit film is based on the Broadway show and was written by Tina Fey (30 Rock), who also wrote the original 2004 film of the same title.
The movie is very similar to the classic Mean Girls movie everyone knows and loves. It is able to incorporate the same iconic lines while being a bit more culturally relevant. The most significant difference is that unlike the original film, this one is a musical.
The new movie features the original “Plastics:” Regina George (Reneé Rapp), Karen Shetty (Avantika Vandanapu), and Gretchen Wieners (Bebe Wood). The group has a reputation for being exclusive, catty and mean. The film begins as the Plastics become friendly with the new girl who just moved to the area from Kenya, Cady Heron (Angourie Rice), who falls for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney). Being naive, Cady doesn’t understand what she got herself into and has to fend for herself against the Plastics.
Leading up to the movie’s release, the question on everyone’s mind was: are the original actors returning to play their same roles? The answer for the majority is unfortunately no. Fey did return in her role as Ms. Norbury, Cady’s math teacher, and Tim Meadows returned as the often overwhelmed and socially awkward Principal Duvall. Lindsay Lohan, who played Cady Heron in the 2004 film, also made an appearance as the Mathless Moderator, and had one line in one of the ending scenes. The original, Regina George, Rachel McAdams, was not back for the new movie, which caused some controversy and speculation.
The film boasts thirteen songs, some from the original Broadway musical adaption, and some original numbers. In addition to the musical component, the new film differs from the original in that its target audience is Gen-Z instead of millennials. The movie incorporates the usage of smartphones and social media to spread gossip and trendy slang versus landlines, flip phones, and secret three-way calls. The film finds a good balance between modern Gen-Z slang and classic lines to appeal to a larger crowd.
During its opening weekend, Mean Girls generated 28 million dollars and charted number 1 in the domestic box office in only a week. Its second week saw an extreme decrease in revenue, but despite decreasing by more than 50%, today, the movie still stands in its number 1 position and has passed 50 million dollars in revenue, making it the first movie of 2024 to do so.
