MEAN GIRLS Recoups and Announces Film Adaptation — Page 2

Hot Pants said: "This is an awful idea. Not only do I not care for the show (love the original film), but I just can’t see why this should be made except for a quick buck. There’s nothing about the musical that seems cinematic. A lot of the staging just won’t work on film. If they wanted to let a wider audience see the musical, they should’ve just professionally taped the Broadway production."

There's nothing about the musical that seems cinematic? It is based nearly beat by beat on a movie! It takes place in so many locations they had to use video screens!

pointilismlight said: "Hot Pants said: "This is an awful idea. Not only do I not care for the show (love the original film), but I just can’t see why this should be made except for a quick buck. There’s nothing about the musical that seems cinematic. A lot of the staging just won’t work on film. If they wanted to let a wider audience see the musical, they should’ve just professionally taped the Broadway production."

There's nothing about the musical that seems cinematic? It is based nearly beat by beat on a movie! It takes place in so many locations they had to use video screens!"

Just because it takes place in a bunch of different locations doesn’t mean it’s cinematic. There’s two problems with making this musical seems cinematic. One is that a lot of the staging feels to based in theatre to transfer to the film. One example of this would be Gretchen acting like a bird, an extremely over the top joke that’s acceptable onstage, but would be far too hammy to be on film. That’s the first one that comes to mind, but there are other moments that wouldn’t transfer well. The other problem is something you brought up. It’s pretty much the movie beat for beat. So why do we need to see the same thing on the big screen again? As another poster said, movie musicals like The Producers and Hairspray felt more justified since they had plenty of differences to their original films. This meant they wouldn’t have to copy them when they got transferred to the screen.

disneybroadwayfan22 said: "I think Waitress, which has become way more famous since the musical, is way more needed as a movie musical than a movie phenomenon."

Agree. Not saying that this won't be, well, interesting, but I guess I just don't understand this over so many other options.

At first this feels shockingly soon to me... because I grew up with MEAN GIRLS. But honestly, HAIRSPRAY was 19 years between original and musical remake... and by the time this reaches screens this is gonna be about 17 years since the original. Yes that's shorter but not that much of a difference.

This feels too soon, but maybe it will be fun and different enough to be worth it, the way the HAIRSPRAY movie surprised. (Not the hugest fan of the John Travolta-ness of it... but he has his moments, and was not as bad as I thought he was gonna be). Was it 100% necessary, no. Was it worthless as entertainment, no.

Lindsay Lohan as Mrs. George?

I hope they don't go with one actress for all the adult females in the show.

disneybroadwayfan22 said: "I think Waitress, which has become way more famous since the musical, is way more needed as a movie musical than a movie phenomenon."

THIS. Other people have already made all the points I would have made about why this isn't a great idea. Musicals should not be made into movies unless there's a cinematic vision. Especially since there have been so many successful examples of how to film a stage show.

I don't understand why people are confused about this. It is one of Paramount's biggest brands. There isn't a world in which they aren't going to take advantage of it...

metropolis10111 said: "Because this never works! lookat what happened to Hairspray... oh wait.. yea."

HAIRSPRAY become the tenth highest grossing musical film in US cinema history, and had the highest opening weekend box office for a musical ever up to that point. And was critically and commercially very successful- so I think it did work.

sparksatmidnight said: "disneybroadwayfan22 said: "I think Waitress, which has become way more famous since the musical, is way more needed as a movie musical than a movie phenomenon."

it's not like we need to choose between one and the other, as the rights to Waitress belongs to Fox/Disney and the rights to Mean Girls to Paramount, and it's not like any of them would ever be released while the musical is still playing and being produced in major markets anyway.

"

Someone enlighten me. To my understanding adapting waitress the show to film would be different in comparison to adapting mean girls, because mean girls the show is produced/owned by the same people who produced/owned the original film. Meanwhile, the folks who produced waitress the show are completely different people to who produced the film. So if the waitress the show producers even wanted to adapt it into a film, they’d have the additional hurdle of having to buy the film rights from the original film producers. PHEW!



Also, wanted to add that along with Paramount Universal is a co producer on Mean Girls and I was curious if that complicates anything.

Updated On: 1/24/20 at 12:44 AM

Call_me_jorge said: "sparksatmidnight said: "disneybroadwayfan22 said: "I think Waitress, which has become way more famous since the musical, is way more needed as a movie musical than a movie phenomenon."

it's not like we need to choose between one and the other, as the rights to Waitress belongs to Fox/Disney and the rights to Mean Girls to Paramount, and it's not like any of them would ever be released while the musical is still playing and being produced in major markets anyway.

"

Someone enlighten me. To my understanding adaptingwaitress the show to film would be different in comparison to adapting mean girls, because mean girls the show is produced/owned by the same people who produced/owned the original film. Meanwhile, the folks who produced waitress the show are completely different people to who produced the film. So if the waitress the show producers even wanted to adapt it into a film, they’d have the additional hurdle of having to buy the film rights from the original film producers. PHEW!"

It's standard to *not* release the movie rights along with theatrical rights when you are approached to do a musical version of a movie. So, those who own the original movie already own the rights to produce a musical film from the get go. That's why Paramount is producing the musical film Mean Girls, and why Searchlight/Disney will produce a Waitress movie if it ever comes out. Same thing happened with Hairspray (both by Warner Bros.), and almost the same thing happened with Wicked, although that's not a movie, but Universal owned the rights to the book when they were approached by Stephen Schwartz (Little Shop of Horrors and The Producers are a bit more complicated).