Movie review
Curious marketing: The “Mean Girls” sing, but Hollywood stays silent
Lindsay Lohan (left) as Cady Haron in “Girls Club” (2004) and Angourie Rice in the “Mean Girls” remake.
© Collage: Picture Alliance /dpa; Jojo Whilden / 2023 Paramount Pictures
The cult comedy “Girls Club – Be careful!” is coming back to the screen after 20 years as a remake. And is therefore one of the films that first become a stage musical and later a musical film – without being marketed as such. A bad recycling trick?
The plot is classic: “Girls Club” is about Cady Heron, a teenage girl who moves from Africa to Illinois and attends an American high school for the first time. As she tries to fit in to climb the popularity ladder, she learns important lessons about friendship, authenticity, and the consequences of her actions. Heron is drawn to an exclusive clique, the ‘Plastics’, led by the fearsome Regina George.
As in the original version, the script for the newly released high school satire was written by actress and comedian Tina Fey, who once again takes on the role of teacher Ms. Norbury.
Tina Fey wrote the script and, as in the previous film, plays the teacher Ms. Norbury
© Jojo Whilden / 2023 Paramount Pictures
Few old faces, but many new faces
Back then played by Lindsay Lohan, the role of Cady in the 2024 version will be played by Australian actress Angourie Rice. Regina – the role with which Rachel McAdams celebrated her breakthrough at the time – is being taken on by Renée Rapp, which is entirely understandable, after all, she also slipped into Queen B’s pink outfit on Broadway. The stage adaptation was shown a total of 833 times between the Broadway premiere in 2018 and this abrupt end due to the corona pandemic in 2020. The spectacle turned out to be a financial success and grossed more than a million dollars in the first seven previews. The obvious step was to film the theater version again. Hollywood, the recycling machine, doesn’t shy away from anything.
First in the Broadway version, now in the film: Renée Rapp embodies Regina George
© Jojo Whilden / 2023 Paramount Pictures
However, the fact that this time there is singing and dancing could confuse some unsuspecting moviegoers – because the film was not explicitly advertised as a musical in advance. In the trailer, no song is heard, no choreography takes place, and the term “musical” doesn’t even flutter across the screen. According to Paramount, they didn’t want to “scare off” audiences and thus appeal to a broader audience.
Is Hollywood afraid of musicals?
Sophisticated – or quite devious?
In 1985, Steven Spielberg filmed the novel “The Color Purple”. Now the film adaptation of the musical version starts on February 8th
© Collage: Picture Alliance/dpa; 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Another example: “The Color Purple”, a film drama about a black woman living in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century, is coming to German cinemas in February – and not for the first time either. The story is based on the award-winning novel by Alice Walker, was first filmed by Steven Spielberg in 1985 and was nominated eleven times at the Oscars the following year. Around 20 years later, the jump onto the Broadway stage followed, which turned out to be a great success, including eleven Tony Award nominations. One trophy ultimately went to the leading actress.
Warner Brothers calls “The Color Purple” “a bold new interpretation of the beloved classic” in the new trailer. And what is bold and new? The 2024 version is a musical adaptation. Nevertheless, nothing more than briefly hinted at dance scenes in the advertising clip. And even in the film it seems as if Hollywood is not 100 percent behind the decision to turn the drama into a musical: the songs are beautifully implemented cinematographically, but act like a narrative brake that deprives the characters of some of their depth takes.
Taraji P. Henson as Shug Avery and Fantasia Barrino as Celie in The Color Purple
© Eli Ade / 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Nasty trick or clever marketing?
It is hardly surprising that the studios want to get as many viewers as possible into the cinema seats. But especially with film adaptations that can look back on decades of success, including a lucrative Broadway career, one would think that the marketing of the remakes is aggressively aimed at this. Didn’t productions like “Mamma Mia”, “The Greatest Showman” or “La La Land” prove that musicals can really hit the right notes with viewers? Let’s see how many nostalgics experience a rude awakening with the “Mean Girls” when they are actually looking forward to the bitches of the original – and then the intrigue is danced between the lockers and the canteen.