Mean Girls is a 2024 American teen musical comedy film directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. from a screenplay written by Tina Fey.

Sixteen-year-old homeschooled Cady Heron moves back to the United States from Kenya with her mother and attends North Shore High School.

She befriends Janis ʻImiʻike and Damian Hubbard, who introduce her to the various cliques, warning her to avoid the Plastics, who consist of the insecure gossiper Gretchen Wieners, unintelligent and bubbly Karen Shetty, and manipulative "Queen bee" Regina George.

Cady tricks Regina into eating weight-gain Kälteen Bars to lose weight and replaces her face cream with lard.

However, Cady convinces her mother to let her stay home and secretly throws a house party, where she drunkenly admits to Aaron that she has been deliberately failing math to get closer to him.

As Regina was not invited to the party and is enraged to discover that Cady lied about the Kälteen Bars, she adds herself into the Burn Book as an alibi and deliberately drops it in the school hallway.

Cady realizes the damage she has done and takes full responsibility for the book, leading her to be suspended for three weeks and placed on absolute final warning.

[7] Fey wrote the book of the show, while her husband, Jeff Richmond, composed the music with lyrics written by Nell Benjamin.

[11][14][15] In February 2023, it was announced that the roles of Aaron, Gretchen, and Karen would be played by Christopher Briney, Bebe Wood, and Avantika Vandanapu, respectively.

[17] Fey and Tim Meadows were added to the cast to reprise their roles from the original film, Ms. Norbury and Principal Duvall.

[22][23] In December 2023, Rachel McAdams revealed to Variety that she and Fey discussed the possibility of a cameo in the film, but it ultimately did not work out.

[26] Principal photography took place at the building of the defunct Mater Dei High School in Middletown Township, New Jersey,[27] from March to April 2023.

[35] Alongside Richmond and Benjamin, Reneé Rapp co-wrote, "What Ifs", a new song for Cady,[36] replacing "It Roars" from the stage production.

[37] The album features twelve musical numbers from the film, and the track "Not My Fault" by Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion, previously released as a single on December 15, 2023.

[3][4] In the United States and Canada, Mean Girls was released on January 12, 2024, alongside The Beekeeper and The Book of Clarence, and was projected to gross $27–30 million from 3,791 theaters in its opening weekend, which included the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.

[52] In the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it released on a Wednesday, January 17, it also opened at number one[53] and held the top spot in the following weekend.

The website's consensus reads: "Preserving the essence of the original while adding a few new wrinkles – not to mention musical numbers – Mean Girls is a sweet (if slight) update with an outstanding cast.

[42] Maureen Lee Lenker of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "As it did in 2004, Mean Girls is a playground for a melange of fresh, new talent for whom we hope the limit does not exist".

[59] Kate Erbland of IndieWire wrote, "Jayne and Perez's Mean Girls treads a fine line with relative ease: give something to older fans, and earn some new ones in the process".

"[61] Carla Meyer of San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "The songs are mid and some story elements aged like Juicy Couture, but the acting and singing are totally fetch in the new movie musical version of Mean Girls".

[62] Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune wrote, "The core of Fey's storyline hasn't changed, even if technology has.

[64] BJ Colangelo of /Film wrote, "Mean Girls is an entirely different animal compared to the apex predator of the original film, but it holds its own in the constantly evolving biosphere of teen cinema".

[65] Kevin Harley of Total Film wrote, "[An] enjoyable but safe musical redo...it's the old Mean Girls with smartphones, essentially, with an attendant risk of redundancy".

[66] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "All the effervescence and fun have been drained out of the material in this labored reincarnation, a movie musical made by people who appear to have zero understanding of movie-musical vernacular".

[67] Valerie Complex of Deadline Hollywood wrote, "the film struggles to justify its existence beyond surface-level changes and ultimately falters in delivering a coherent, impactful story that offers little new or compelling".

[68] David Fear of Rolling Stone wrote, "No one's expecting the second coming of MGM's Freed Unit here, but dear god, transforming Mean Girls: The Musical into a hot mess was definitely not on our wish list".