4 things to know about the new Mean Girls movie before watching

polygon.com:

There’s a newMean Girlsmovie out! Tina Fey, who scripted the original Mean Girlsback in 2004, wrote the script for the new movie based on her book for the Broadway musical version. But this time, the lead roles are played by Angourie Rice (Mare of Easttown), Reneé Rapp (The Sex Lives of College Girls), and Auliʻi Cravalho (Moana), The trailers make it look like a soft reboot of the 2004 movie directed by Mark Waters, but set two decades later. But that isn’t quite the case. While the 2024 Mean Girls includes a lot of references to the 2004 movie (and some returning cast members), it comes with a distinct new twist.

Here’s everything you can expect from — or might be wondering about — the 2024 Mean Girls.

For people who saw or heard about the Broadway musical, this may seem like an obvious question. But the early trailers mostly hid the movie’s musical status, and anecdotal evidence from early screenings has made it clear that some audience members were pretty surprised to find themselves at a musical. The new Mean Girls is an adaptation of the 2018 stage musical, which is based on the 2004 movie. The songs were written by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin, and the original Broadway run starred Erika Henningsen (Hazbin Hotel) as Cady, Barrett Wilbert Weed (Heathers: The Musical) as Janis, Taylor Louderman as Regina George, and Ashley Park (Only Murders in the Building) as Gretchen Wieners.

All three versions were written by Tina Fey, though, who was inspired by the parenting book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. The 2024 movie was directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., making their feature film debut.

Mean Girls (2024) tells a story similar to that of the 2004 movie, but it takes place in the