In retrospect, Paramount probably could have been a teeny bit clearer that the new Mean Girls is a musical. The movie is an adaptation of the Broadway musical, which itself was an adaptation of the all-time iconic 2004 comedy.
The trailer for the movie contains brief moments from the musical numbers, though doesn’t go out of its way to point out that it’s a full-on musical. And the TV spot? If you only saw these you’d never guess this is an all-singin’, all-dancin’ take on Mean Girls.
As such, the reaction from audiences when the characters break into song is probably not what the directors intended:
To add a teeny bit of context here, this is the fourth musical number in the movie, but it seems clear this particular audience is not getting into it. Replies seem to agree, saying “musicals are the worst kind of media“, “0/10“, and even raising the spectre of the 2019 nightmare flop Cats:
This reaction, or ones like are being pinned on a botched marketing campaign. Whether that’s intentional or not is up for debate: perhaps Paramount figured that once the ticket is bought their job is done? Either way, this isn’t going down well:
Perhaps this should have been titled Mean Girls: The Musical to avoid this exact (and very predictable) situation occurring. That said, this has been picking up broadly positive reviews so fingers crossed word gets out that this movie is a) a musical and b) actually pretty good.
Either way, studios should take note and not try to hide whether a movie is a musical or not as viral videos like this are not a good look.
Mean Girls is now in theaters.