Just because a comedy is received well critically and commercially during its initial release doesn't necessarily mean it will remain popular as the years pass. Mean Girls, though, needn't worry about that, because 14 years after the Lindsay Lohan-led teen comedy dropped in theaters, it continues to be quoted and remembered fondly by many, to the point that it even has its own day. That said, had things gone differently, we could have seen Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood as one of the Mean Girls leads, and the only reason she turned down the movie was because it was too similar to another project she had lined up. When asked if it was true that she auditioned for Mean Girls, Wood responded:
It's even worse, I turned it down. There's a good reason. The only reason was because I was already supposed to do a film called Pretty Persuasion that was set in a high school, that was very Heathers-esque and it was very similar. I was already doing that, so I was like 'I can't.'
Evan Rachel Wood set the record straight during her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and in hindsight, I would imagine that she's wishes she would have taken the Mean Girls role. While Mean Girls opened wide to the public in 2004, earned many positive reviews and made $129 million off a $17 million budget, Pretty Persuasion, which came out in 2005, opened in select theaters was was met with mostly negative reception. I can understand Wood at the time not wanting to star in two high school-set movies at the time, since there's no way should could have predicted that Mean Girls would be so successful. Alas, things didn't work out that way, but Wood is still interested in working with Tina Fey, who wrote the screenplay, which was based off the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. Provided that Fey's next project isn't about a "robot uprising," Wood is all in on a collaboration.
While she didn't end up appearing in Mean Girls, Evan Rachel Wood has still built a solid acting resume. In the years after Mean Girls and Pretty Persuasion, she appeared in projects like Running with Scissors, Across the Universe, The Wrestler and True Blood. She can currently be seen playing Dolores Abernathy in HBO's Westworld. As for the Mean Girls, while a direct sequel starring Lindsay Logan, Rachel McAdams and the rest of the main cast never happened, Mean Girls 2 was released on ABC Family in 2011, and it starred an all-new cast with the exception of Tim Meadows, who reprised Principal Ron Duvall. A Mean Girls musical also just opened on Broadway, and a couple years back, a spinoff titled Mean Moms entered development, but as of late 2015, it's been stalled.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for all the latest movies updates, Mean Girls-related and otherwise. To find out what's hitting the big screen later this year, look through our 2018 release schedule.
