Is the New “Mean Girls” Movie a Musical? What to Expect When Seeing the Broadway Adaptation in Theaters

The new ‘Mean Girls’ adaptation came out in theaters on Jan. 12, 2024

The new Mean Girls adaptation is aspiring to be as “fetch” as the original.

Mean Girls, the 2024 version, was announced as an adaptation of the hit Broadway show of the same name in January 2020, with original star and writer Tina Fey writing the script and producing again, per Deadline. Four years later, the movie premiered on Jan. 12, 2024.

In December 2022, the cast was announced, including Senior Year actress Angourie Rice taking on Cady Heron, the lead originally played by Lindsay Lohan, and Reneé Rapp reprising her role from the Broadway show as Cady’s nemesis Regina George. Fey would also reprise the same role she played in the original movie nearly 20 years ago.

Related: 'Mean Girls' Musical Movie: Everything to Know

However, after the teaser trailer for the highly anticipated film dropped — sans a single song — in November 2023, fans had a few questions. Mainly, where was all the music?

From how much singing will be featured to how it will differ from the original production, here’s everything to know about the upcoming Mean Girls movie.

Yes, Mean Girls is a musical

The new Mean Girls is indeed a musical and includes songs from the original Broadway show.

"This is a very specific version of the musical that has a really specific place in a niche, culty theater way, that I think expands it to maybe people who aren't super into theater," Rapp told PEOPLE in April 2023.

Related: See the Mean Girls Casts Side-by-Side with the Other Actors Who Played the Characters

Rapp also praised Fey, who wrote both movie iterations and the book for the Broadway show.

"Tina and our whole team just does such an amazing job adapting it, and the whole cast is really young and very cool,” she said.

No, it's not a remake

Though the new movie is based on the original 2004 film, it's not a direct remake, according to producer Lorne Michaels.

“It isn’t a remake, it’s a new interpretation," he told Entertainment Weekly in December 2023. "It feels like a familiar enough story, but it’s for today.”

Tony Award-nominee Jaquel Spivey, who plays Damian, added that the goal wasn't to recreate the iconic movie, but rather, to make a modern-day take.

“We love it so much that we’re going to make something fresh, because we can’t recreate it — it’s too iconic,” Spivey said.

Related: The 10 Biggest Differences Between the New Mean Girls Movie and the Original

“On set, we would say, ‘We want to uphold the sacred text,’ but also have it feel new and fresh because it is something different. It’s another take on it,” director Samantha Jayne added.

One way they made changes was to make the movie much more inclusive, including a more diverse cast and characters. “Representation is extremely important,” Jayne said. “To be able to see yourself reflected on screen is everything, so we wanted our actors to bring themselves to this role in every way possible.”

Was there singing in the trailer?

When the teaser trailer first came out, the only song that could be heard was head mean girl Regina George’s introduction to herself in “Meet the Plastics.” But the real confusing moment hit when the full trailer was released, and not a single song was played. Instead, the trailer was set to Olivia Rodrigo’s “get him back!”

Fans posted about their confusion online, with one person on X writing, “if i was making a trailer of the broadway version of a show i would simply include the music so ppl know it is not just a remake.”

Another person on X wrote, “I’m surprised the trailer doesn’t feature any aspect of this being a musical, since u know, that’s the main difference in this version.”

How much singing is in the movie?

The Mean Girls soundtrack is available on music streaming platforms and features 13 tracks, including Rapp’s collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion, “Not My Fault,” which is the credit song. However, the original Broadway show has 21 tracks.

While naturally, not all 21 made the cut, 11 other tracks in the film are from the Broadway show, with one more original song, "What Ifs." The other tracks include "A Cautionary Tale," "Meet the Plastics," "Stupid with Love," "Apex Predator," "What's Wrong With Me?," "Sexy," "Someone Gets Hurt," "Revenge Party," "World Burn," "I'd Rather Be Me" and "I See Stars."

Fey’s husband, Jeff Richmond, composed the movie and explained to Entertainment Weekly the choice to make some of the songs original.

“People doing bedroom pop is very popular, basically producing all their songs in the bedroom,” Richmond said. “So that was our initial approach, but I wanted to bend the songs a little bit more to sound like radio hits, so we were changing the palette from Broadway to radio.”

To that end, every main character — except for Chris Briney’s Aaron Samuels — does sing, and just like in the Broadway show, Cady’s narration will be replaced by music.

Related: How to Watch Mean Girls, Including Where It Will Be Available to Stream

What are the differences between the Broadway show and the movie?

One of the main differences, to start, is the run times of each. Where the Broadway show is around two hours and 30 minutes, the movie comes in at just five minutes under two hours. The number of songs has also been cut nearly in half.

However, one thing that will remain the same is Janis and Damian, played by Moana’s Auli’i Cravalho and Spivey respectively, will narrate the story — which is different from the original movie.

"Something that [directors] Sam and Art said that I was astounded by was, ‘What if Janis and Damian directed their own high school experience?' ” Bebe Wood, who plays Gretchen Weiners, told EW.

During the red carpet premiere of the movie, Cravalho told PEOPLE that she was honored (and nervous) to be tapped to play the modern version of Janis.

"1000% I was nervous. First of all, I have to say that I'm a friend and a fan of the original, and I'm not looking to remake the perfection that is Mean Girls from '04," she said. "But also when Tina Fey is a part of a project that is a re-imagination of Mean Girls that also incorporates music from the Broadway musical, my little theater kid was over the moon. I was so excited to be a part of this."

Why aren't studios marketing movies as musicals?

Even though Fey and the cast have set the record straight on Mean Girls being a musical, the question remains of why it’s not being marketed as such. It’s also not the only movie musical to experience this — Wonka, Leo and The Color Purple were all December 2023 releases that were not explicitly marketed as musicals.

The Hollywood Reporter wrote that studios are shying away from promoting musicals because of the negative connotations or perceptions that may be associated with them, such as every word being sung.

“If you spell out the word musical, people have pre-formed opinions. Musical has a connotation that [characters] are going to sing every word, and audiences can be turned off,” one studio marketer told the outlet.

Per Deadline, test-audience focus groups have been found to “generally hate” musicals, and studios have found that the only way to get audiences through the doors to see one is to conceal exactly how much singing will be involved.

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