'Mean Girls' Gets Streaming Date Following Theatrical Release

Mean Girls (2024) will be streaming on Paramount+ starting on Tuesday, March 5. The new movie musical premiered in theaters back in January, making this a quick turnaround even by today's standards. The movie did well at the box office, but now fans will get a chance to see it at home.

Mean Girls premiered on Jan. 12 in theaters in the U.S., and it made over $100 million while it was there. It was also recently added to PVOD stores like Prime Video where you can rent or purchase it, but now it will be included with a single subscription. All of that money was icing for the re-adaptation, which was originally slated to premiere directly on Paramount+, according to a report by Variety. Executives decided to send it to theaters based on the enthusiasm at test screenings.

Tina Fey wrote Mean Girls in 2004, loosely based on a self-help book called Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. The original movie was a critical and commercial success, and it left a lasting impression on pop culture for years to come. Fey collaborated with Nell Benjamin and Jeff Richmond to adapt that movie into a Broadway musical which premiered in 2017, and now things have come full circle as that movie musical was adapted into the 2024 movie.

The new movie stars Angourie Rice as Cady Heron, a girl raised in South Africa who is abruptly thrown into the frightening ecosystem of a suburban Illinois high school. She makes some true friends including Janis (Auli'i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), but also infiltrates the popular girls' clique with Regina (Reneé Rapp), Karen (Avantika) and Gretchen (Bebe Wood). Fey reprises her role as math teacher Ms. Norbury once again, Busy Philipps plays Regina's mother, while Jenna Fischer plays Cady's mother. Other stars include Christopher Briney and Tim Meadows.

The 2024 film comes with the addition of musical numbers, but critics are split over whether that adds anything to the experience or whether it is well-suited to the screen. Fans can decide for themselves starting on Tuesday, March 5 when Mean Girls (2024) will be streaming on Paramount+. The 2004 original is streaming there now as well.