So fetch! Sixteen years after Mean Girls debuted in theaters across the world, the teen flick remains a favorite with fans and celebrities.
The 2004 film, which raked in $129 million globally on a $17 million budget, is responsible for creating iconic lines including, “On Wednesdays, we wear pink” to “Is butter a carb?” Mean Girls also helped catapult the careers of its stars, including Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried.
“I’ve just worked a long time. I’ve gotten a lot of cool opportunities here and there and I’ve made some good choices with the help of my amazing team,” Seyfried, 33, told the Los Angeles Times in 2013. “I still look back at Mean Girls as my best work.”
Directed by Mark Waters and written by Tina Fey based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, Mean Girls follows Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) as she navigates her way through the American school system after her family moves back to the U.S. from Africa. Early into her high school journey, she is asked to join The Plastics — a popular girl clique run by Regina George (McAdams). However, Cady finds herself in hot water when she develops a crush on Regina’s ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett).
Fey, Lacey Chabert, Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Franzese, Tim Meadows and Amy Poehler also star.
“I have to thank Regina George for giving me some longevity,” McAdams, 40, told The New York Times in 2018. “I’m forever grateful to Tina Fey and Mark Waters. I remember when I read it, I called my agent right away and said, ‘I will play any part in this, please, please, please.’ I was at the beginning of my career, and it was a lofty thing out there, that I really, really, really wanted to do.”
The popular movie has also spawned a TV film, Mean Girls 2, in 2011 and a Broadway musical created by Fey in 2017. It also inspired Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” video, with Kris Jenner recreating Poehler’s “cool mom” character. Fey additionally announced in January 2020 that she would reimagine the Mean Girls Broadway musical as a major motion picture.
The film’s popularity additionally sparked the launch of the fan-created holiday, “Mean Girls Day,” that’s celebrated annually on October 3. This special occasion references a line said by Lohan’s Cady about her crush, Bennett’s Aaron. “On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was,” she said.
In honor of the iconic film, scroll down to see what the cast has been up to since the movie’s 2004 premiere.