“It's for high schoolers now, so we wanted to make it reflective of their experience,” co-director Samantha Jayne told PEOPLE at the film's premiere. “It also has music and we're able to dive deeper into character and really have an opportunity to dimensionalize these characters more.
The Mean Girls reboot had two distinct goals: to adapt the musical and to recreate the movie for a modern audience. They fell slightly short in both. There was so much ground to cover for one film that the musical elements were shifted enough to make it a less faithful adaptation than it had likely hoped to be.
Here's what's wrong with trying to remake something as iconic as “Mean Girls.” The new cast knows, too well, the original piece, so that when delivering the same lines, it's done with the same mannerisms and the same tone and it comes off as tacky. But even the most memorable lines were butchered.
Although everyone is asking the same questions – we will never know why Tina Fey, who wrote the screenplays for the first movie, for the musical and the new adaption, thought this was a good idea. Maybe it was for the money. Maybe she needed another movie role.
Because Mean Girls has been repackaged for her generation: the reboot (written by Tina Fey, who also wrote the original) has a musical, Gen Z spin, with a whole new vibe and a whole new tribe. It courts Y2K nostalgia while openly, playfully baiting its original audience.
Mean Girls (2024) Being a Musical Remake. At the end of the day, the largest difference between the two Mean Girls films is that the 2004 release was the original, and the 2024 version is a musical remake.
Mean Girls (2024) Was Refreshing in Some Ways but Mostly Worse Than the Original. I wasn't going to watch the new Mean Girls movie at first. I knew it was a remake of the recent Broadway musical, which wasn't entirely engrossing. I'd heard about Angourie Rice's flat singing and awkward camera angles.
Regina George is the main antagonist in the 2004 film Mean Girls and its musical counterpart. She is portrayed by Rachel McAdams in the original 2004 film, was originated by Taylor Louderman in its Broadway musical version, and Reneé Rapp as the Broadway replacement and in the 2024 film adaptation of the musical.
The Plastics are back in the long-awaited follow-up to the smash hit Mean Girls - and now the clique is more fashionable, funny, and ferocious than ever. Get Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+, all with ads, for $14.99/mo.
The new version of the film follows many of the same beats as the original screenplay, though it does feature Janis and Damian as pseudo-narrators, rather than Lindsay Lohan's Cady, who narrated the 2004 movie. Like in the Broadway show, the two occasionally break the fourth wall and address the audience.
While the acting was not the best, overall; the singing and dancing, and its timing, was terrible. Many individuals also believed that the casting of Reneé Rapp as Regina George was well thought out with her singing abilities and experience in the acting field, but I disagree.
The sex-ed teacher is revealed to be committing statutory rape with two students and is shown making out with a teen girl. Gay slurs are used. There's a prank involving a pregnancy test. Cady's home is taken over by partying teens while her parents are out of town.
Mean Girls premiered at the AMC Lincoln Square in New York City on January 8, 2024, and was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on January 12. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed over $104 million worldwide against a $36 million budget.
The acting isn't all that good, and while it was nice to see some Disney stars taking on more mature and realistic roles, the film didn't feel at all believable, as the entire drama of high school felt way too over- the-top. There isn't much reason for this film to exist, except cash-in on the "Mean Girls" name.
The release date for Mean Girls (2024) has been set for January 12, 2024, and it will appear in theaters. The movie was initially pegged as a Paramount+ exclusive, but the studio has since opted for a full theatrical release.
Singer and actor Reneé Rapp, who just turned 24, stars as a junior named Regina George. Regina, likely 16 or 17 years old, runs North Shore High School with her two minions. The trio is collectively known as the Plastics.
Regina does some awful things in the movie, but she turns to protein bars in an attempt to control her body out of desperation. Her so-called friends manipulate her vulnerabilities for their own gain. This pushes her to disordered eating.
Throughout the later part of the film, Regina can be seen eating the bars whenever she gets the chance, eventually gaining so much weight that she could not even fit into her Spring Fling dress anymore, and later from her boyfriend she realized that Cady had tricked her and she screamed until she got back home.
kind but naïve. Though Cady has a good heart, she has a tendency to succumb to peer pressure. After years of homeschooling, she just wants to be liked by her peers. Her innocence is her downfall, and she lets the “mean girls” take advantage of her naïveté and desperate desire to fit in.
The original Mean Girls is surgically sharp in its insightfulness. It gets right to the heart of toxic friendships, power struggles, alienation, the push and pull of female friendships, the heartbreaks and joys and absurdities of all of it.
During her time away, Janis developed a different style and expression and grew a bitter hatred towards Regina for making everyone think she was a lesbian. Janis returned to North Shore High some time before Cady Heron joined. She stayed away from Regina and befriended Damian Leigh in that time.
Overall, Mean Girls (2024) embraces meta-humour, calling out sex, feminism, bullying, and social standards more explicitly and engagingly. Social media will play a bigger role in the plot of Mean Girls (2024), highlighting its influence in spreading rumours and giving bullies power outside of school hours.
The Plastics have broken up, Regina's on the lacrosse team, and Cady is still friends with Janis and Damian, but her social circle isn't limited to a particular clique.
This includes the protagonists, especially Janis, whose sweet coming out story is soon overshadowed by an incident between Janis and antagonist Regina, her former best friend. Regina took advantage of Janis in a social situation and then mocked her using her sexuality, inviting others to join in the bullying.
