Mean Girls is a musical teen comedy film directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr from a screenplay by Tina Fey. Samantha and Arturo recently talked about their first encounter with Mean Girls. They also spoke about the team’s decision on songs that they would keep and those they would cut. (Also Read | Checking in on the Mean Girls cast: What they’re up to now)
Here are seven things you need to know about Mean Girls:
1) Samantha spoke about the first encounter with Mean Girls
Samantha told Variety, “It came out when I was in high school, and it just became part of our language. My friends and I would, everything we would say is from Mean Girls. You could have an entire conversation just in Mean Girls. It’s a story that doesn’t speak down to teens, especially teen girls. It didn’t speak down to us or make our emotions feel silly and really made me feel seen.”
2) Samantha talked about discussions on songs to keep in Mean Girls
She told Variety, “We wanted to connect with as many teens as possible, and in order to do so, we really had to update the palette of the musical and make it more pop or what teens would listen to. Jeff and the musicians did a great job in making it sound accessible and fresh. And some songs were just super Broadway, like Stop.” Arturo also said though ‘there were so many tears shed’ for classic Broadway song Stop, ‘it wasn’t advancing the story’.
3) Samantha also opened up about what to cut in film
She said that they ‘were really adamant about keeping Sexy in, even though it doesn’t necessarily advance the plot’.
4) Samantha also spoke about Harry Styles in Mean Girls
Talking with The Hollywood Reporter, she said, “We were like Harry Styles could be Glen Coco! Then we were like, hold on, we love to break the fourth wall: What if we are all Glen Coco? So, after 20 years, we can all feel like Glen Coco. [Editor’s note: The line is delivered straight to camera, as if the audience is Glen Coco.]”
5) Tina Fey on updating her writing for Mean Girls
Talking with The New York Times, Tina said, “I was writing in the early 2000s very much based on my experience as a teen in the late ’80s. It’s come to no one’s surprise that jokes have changed. You don’t poke in the way that you used to poke. Even if your intention was always the same, it’s just not how you do it anymore, which is fine. I very much believe that you can find new ways to do jokes with less accidental shrapnel sideways.”
6) Mean Girls US box office
As per Variety, Mean Girls earned $11.65 million from 3,791 theatres on Friday and preview screenings, tracking to a four-day opening of $31.5 million through the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. As per the report, if Mean Girls can continue to drum up business in the weeks ahead, it should more than justify its $36 million production budget (with ticket sales that it would’ve waived completely had it debuted on streaming).
7) Lindsay on being part of Mean Girls
Recently, Lindsay told news agency AP about being a part of the film. She had said, “It was an amazing movie to work on when I did it, and I can’t wait to see this new iterative version of it. I think it’s gonna be wonderful.” She said it “felt great” to hear of the movie’s impact on teens over the years and was excited that the new film, which released Friday, will deal with new topics.
More about Mean Girls
Just like the 2004 version, the musical movie follows Cady Heron’s move to the suburbs, where she experiences the treacherous hierarchies of high school. There, she finds herself accepted by an elite yet shallow group of girls known as the Plastics, led by Regina George — here played by Renee Rapp. The film also stars Angourie Rice.
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