The new Mean Girls film is a hit at the US box office – but the marketing has not been going out of its way to reveal the movie is a musical.
Last week in the US and this coming weekend in the UK it’s the turn of the new Mean Girls film to try and draw people into cinemas. In the US as well, it’s certainly worked: a $28m opening weekend is a good return, and Paramount will be rather chuffed with that.
Not least because its marketing campaign has clearly paid dividends here. As we’ve discussed on this very site before, it selected the folder marked ‘market a musical, but don’t tell anyone it’s a musical’. The new Mean Girls is, after all, an adaptation of the stage musical, which in turn is based on the wonderful 2004 film.
Marc Weinstock is the global marketing boss at Paramount, and he’s been chatting to Variety about the way they pushed the film. Bottom line: the studio absolutely played down the fact that the movie’s a musical.
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“To start off saying musical, musical, musical, you have the potential to turn off audiences,” Weinstock explained to the outlet. “I want everyone to be equally excited.”
“People treat musicals differently”, he added, not unreasonably. This movie is a broad comedy with music. Yes, it could be considered a musical, but it appeals to a larger audience”.
Well, musicals do sometimes reach a large audience (Broadway and the West End would be rather empty if they didn’t), but then he throws in the mitigating factors that another pair of current releases – Wonka and The Color Purple – are both to a degree musicals. Watch the trailer for the pair of them, and the same accusations being levelled at Mean Girls could be pointed in their direction.
Mean Girls thus arrives this weekend in UK cinemas with a similar campaign and hoping to repeat its US success. Early signs are looking positive…
Read more: Movie musical trailers | Why aren’t there any songs in them?
