If you were worried that the instantly infamous Cats had killed the movie musical once more, you can chill: As per Variety, Tina Fey is working on bringing Mean Girls, her eternally beloved high school satire, back to the big screen. The twist: It will be a movie version of the Broadway musical adaptation that’s scooped up a pretty penny as well as some Tony nominations.
Released in 2004, Mean Girls was Fey’s first produced film screenplay, following a nice girl (Lindsay Lohan) who goes from homeschooled to high school, only to wind up embraced by a clique known as the “Plastics,” peopled by Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried. A box office hit, its popularity has stayed high over the ensuing decade-and-a-half, enough that it was rehabbed for Broadway, and now as a forthcoming musical movie.
When it hits theaters at an as-yet-to-be-disclosed date, this latest iteration of Mean Girls will join a very short list of musical movies based on musicals based on non-musical movies. Really, it’s just Hairspray (based on the John Waters classic), Little Shop of Horrors (from the Roger Corman not-quite-classic), and Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (a loose reworking of Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria). Perhaps Mean Girls: The Movie Musical will inspire Hollywood to finally tackle the infamous Broadway version of Carrie or the short-lived musical take on The Bridges of Madison County.
(Via Variety)
