I would rather get hit by a bus like Regina George than see the film adaptation of the musical adaptation of “Mean Girls.”
How did we get here? How is this interesting to anyone? So many pieces of intellectual property are going full circle, spinning round and round on the carousel of nostalgia until it flies off its supports into the clouds.
Adapting a movie to the stage is one thing, but adapting that stage show into another movie is just bizarre. This Frankenstein’s monster of a film is going to sashay into theaters and people will gobble it up and we will continue to move away from originality.
I can understand the concept of timeless stories and characters that endure throughout history. “Mean Girls” came out in 2004, though. And yeah, the movie is great. It’s genuinely hilarious and it’s so easy to quote. But why can’t we just leave it at that? I don’t think of “Mean Girls” when I think of enduring, powerful tales about life and coming of age. It’s just a cult classic movie that I can watch with my friends when we have nothing else to do.
I just don’t understand why we have to continuously adapt the same stories over and over again to force some sort of cultural impact that isn’t really there. I mean, does “Mean Girls” have that much cultural clout?
I know people who like the movie, sure, but there isn’t a roving mob of rabid people in pink tracksuits defending it and demanding its preservation in the Library of Congress. To my knowledge, “Mean Girls” doesn’t have Twitter stans.
So why do we need a stage adaptation and then a film adaptation of that adaptation? That’s too much for pretty much any story. At this rate we’re going to get a musical adaptation of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and then they’re going to adapt that into a film. James Cameron is going to turn all 46 “Avatar” movies into musicals and then turn those into films.
God, the concept is just so ridiculous. But between this and Disney’s “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” it seems like it may actually become a trend. Everything will just be an adaptation of an adaptation in the future.
I don’t know if the film will just be called “Mean Girls” or if it will be a wordy abomination like “Mean Girls: The Musical: The Movie.” But I do know that no one really asked for this. Or maybe I’m just out of touch and everyone is desperate to see the same story retold less than two decades later.
Maybe we’re all just running out of ideas, and we’re destined to have the same stories poured down our throats for the rest of our mortal lives. There’s beating a dead horse and then there’s driving over a horse, backing over it, setting it on fire and then driving over it again.
Please, someone come up with a new idea for something soon. I’m tired.
