A film adaptation of the Mean Girls stage musical is finally coming out next year, and fans are all noticing the same thing about the project’s newly-released trailer.
The classic teen movie starring Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams came out nearly 20 years ago, with a stage musical based on it running on Broadway for a number of years.
Now, the musical is heading back to where it all started – the big screen, with the first trailer being released on Wednesday.
The two-minute clip shows Spider-Man actor Angourie Rice in the lead role of Cady, while Reneé Rapp shows up as Regina George, a character she previously portrayed on the Broadway stage.
Crucially, the new Mean Girls is not a straight remake – but viewers would be forgiven for misunderstanding that, because the teaser is missing one key thing: actual music from the new film.
“What is the point of making a film based on a musical based on a film and then mostly hiding the fact that it’s a musical so it just looks like a particularly pointless remake that also inexplicably has some of the original cast?” one social media user asked.
Another suggested: “It’s literally Mean Girls The Musical and the trailer is STrrrrAINING to hide the fact that it’s a musical.”
The trailer bills the film as a “new twist from Tina Fey” soundtracked to Olivia Rodrigo’s Get Him Back, but there’s not a single snippet of any musical numbers, besides some blink-and-you-miss-it clips of dance breaks.
It also includes recreations of some iconic Mean Girls moments, including the return of the Burn Book, Cady’s zombie bride Halloween faux pas, the outrageous Jingle Bell Rock dance and the immortalised “get in loser” line.
There is one bit of teaser text signalling that this Mean Girls is in fact different from the original: “This isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls.” Ouch.
Bebe Wood and Avantika Vandanapu complete the trio of Plastics, while Auliʻi Cravalho (AKA Disney’s Moana) portrays Janis opposite Jaquel Spivey’s Damian.
Other cast members include The Summer I Turned Pretty star Christopher Briney, Emily In Paris’ Ashley Park, The Office actor Jenna Fischer and Mad Men’s Jon Hamm.
The Mean Girls musical will also finally be coming to the West End in 2024, six years after it first debuted on Broadway.
And for fans who are loyal to the 2004 classic, the original cast recently reunited in a high-production Walmart advert.