Mean Girls: stage vs screen

Mean Girls has made the full round trip: Tina Fey's 2004 comedy became a Broadway musical in 2018, and that musical became a movie musical in 2024. This page compares the stage show, which opened at the August Wilson Theatre, with both films. The story is close in all three, but the songs, the narrators, and even some last names change along the way.

Stage

Broadway musical (2018)

Screen

Mean Girls (2004) and Mean Girls (2024)

1. Fourteen stage songs cut from the 2024 film

The 2024 movie keeps only part of the Broadway score. Fourteen songs were cut, including Where Do You Belong?, Fearless, Stop, Whose House Is This?, More Is Better, and Do This Thing. The songs that made it include A Cautionary Tale, Meet the Plastics, Stupid with Love, Apex Predator, What's Wrong with Me?, Sexy, Someone Gets Hurt, Revenge Party, World Burn, I'd Rather Be Me, and I See Stars.

2. What Ifs replaces It Roars

On Broadway, Cady introduces herself with It Roars. The 2024 film swapped it for a new song, What Ifs, written by composer Jeff Richmond and lyricist Nell Benjamin with Reneé Rapp. The film also adds an end-credits song, Not My Fault, sung by Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion.

3. Janis and Damian take over the narration

In the 2004 film, Cady tells the story herself in voice-over. The Broadway musical hands the narration to Janis and Damian, who open the show with A Cautionary Tale and speak straight to the audience. The 2024 movie keeps them as narrators, so on this point it follows the stage show rather than the original film.

4. A different Stupid with Love reprise

Both the stage show and the 2024 film reprise Stupid with Love, but the two versions have nothing in common. On stage, Cady and Aaron sing it while she pretends to be bad at math to spend time with him. In the 2024 film, Cady and the ensemble sing it at the Mathletes state championship, where it replaces the Broadway number Do This Thing.

5. Jingle Bell Rock becomes Rockin' Around the Pole

The 2004 film's holiday talent show has the Plastics dancing to Jingle Bell Rock. The 2024 film uses Rockin' Around the Pole in the same scene, a song that was cut from the stage musical and survived there only as a short snippet. The new film also builds phones and social media into the plot, so Regina's disastrous performance goes viral.

6. Janis and Damian get new last names

Janis has a different surname in every version: Janis Ian in 2004, Janis Sarkisian on Broadway, and Janis 'Imi'ike in 2024, played by Auli'i Cravalho. Damian Leigh of the 2004 film became Damian Hubbard on stage and in the 2024 movie. Their friendship with Cady and Janis's old feud with Regina stay the same.

7. Casting that links the versions

Reneé Rapp, who took over Regina George on Broadway in 2019, plays Regina in the 2024 film. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows return from the 2004 film as Ms. Norbury and Principal Duvall, Lindsay Lohan makes a cameo as the Mathletes moderator, and Ashley Park, Broadway's original Gretchen, appears as a French teacher. Rachel McAdams played the non-singing Regina in 2004.

8. The ending barely changes

All three versions build to the Spring Fling, where Cady is crowned queen, snaps the plastic crown, and hands the pieces out to the other girls. Regina is hit by a school bus in every version too. The big differences between the three are in the music and the framing, not in how the story turns out.

Mean Girls movie vs musical: FAQs