Eighteen years on, “Mean Girls” remains one of the seminal teen comedies of the 2000s. And over the years, it’s developed a cult following, with fans holding out hope for a sequel. Well, leave it to “Mean Girls” star Amanda Seyfried to be the bearer of bad news. She doesn’t think it will happen, and neither do her co-stars Lindsay Lohan and Lizzy Caplan.
IndieWire reports that both Seyfried and Lohan shut the topic down when a possible sequel arose in a conversation between the actresses for Interview Magazine. In short, while both would love to see it happen, they don’t think it ever will. “I would kill just to do one week, all of us playing our own roles on “Mean Girls” on Broadway,” Seyfried said, citing the musical show. “Because a ‘Mean Girls 2’ is never going to happen, is it?” “I don’t know. I heard something about it being a movie musical and I was like, ‘Oh no.’ We can’t do that. It has to be the same tone.” Seyfried agreed, “Yeah. It would just be completely different.”
To keep the same tone, a possible “Mean Girls” sequel would need to bring Tina Fey back into the fold, as she wrote the 2004 film. So, would Fey be up for writing a sequel? Maybe when she’s not so busy. “Anyway, Tina is busy,” Seyfried continued. “She’ll get around to it. Listen, we’re all part of each other’s worlds whether we like it or not, and it is really nice to be in contact as adults.” Lohan added, “Yeah, everyone’s still the same. It’s fun to have certain memories that we can’t share with anyone else…I had a feeling, just because you don’t always have that much fun making movies and I knew it was going to show through. But I never realized what it would be, still today.”
Along with Lohan and Seyfried, “Mean Girls” also stars Caplan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, with supporting roles from Fey, Tim Meadows, Amy Poehler, Ana Gasteyer, and more. The film was a box office sensation, making $130 million off a $17 million budget. More importantly, critics loved it too. A Broadway musical adaptation of the film opened in 2017, which earned some Tony nominations. A movie adaptation of the musical is currently in the works, with Fey writing the script and her husband Jeff Richmond doing the music. Arturo Perez Jr. and Samantha Jayne will direct the film, but no casting news just yet.
A “Mean Girls” musical movie is cool, but it’s not “Mean Girls 2.” But if Fey were to write a sequel, is there even a good idea for a story? Lizzy Caplan thinks that the original film already completed its arc. “I would be an idiot not to join,” Caplan said about the possibility of another “Mean Girls” film to Grazia Magazine. “But to me it feels like ‘Mean Girls’ had a really good beginning, middle and end. I don’t know what’s left of the story.” So, perhaps “Mean Girls” should remain a singular teen movie classic, with no follow-up to tarnish its untrammeled reputation as an all-timer.
And maybe that’s for the best. After all, both Seyfried and Lohan are 36, and Caplan is 40. What would a “Mean Girls” sequel even look like with their characters at that age? One may only imagine, and that’s all fans can do at this point unless Tina Fey shocks us all and bangs out a script for “Mean Girls 2” immediately.
