Mean Girls has catapulted into phenomenal success after hitting the big screen in 2004.
It has become a pop culture phenomenon, resulting in its own Broadway musical, which will soon become another film. Queen Bees and Wannabes, where the franchise is based, author Rosalind Wiseman reveals she’s not well compensated for its massive success.
Writer and producer Tina Fey and Paramount Pictures have reportedly earned millions from the Mean Girls franchise. But Wiseman revealed she only got $400,000 after signing a deal to sell her film rights in 2002. Since then, she hasn’t received anything.
Getting What is Rosalind Wiseman’s
More than 20 years after receiving her last payment, Wiseman is ready to get what is hers, preparing to take legal action with her lawyers.
“We have reached out to Paramount to have things be more equitable, but Paramount is not interested in that,” she told The Post.
Allegedly, the studio claimed it earned nothing from the franchise.
“I think it’s fair for me to be able to get compensated in some way for the work that has changed our culture and changed the zeitgeist,” she continued.
Rosalind Wiseman Chose Tina Fey Among Many Film Offers
Wiseman met Fey in 2002 after the latter signed a development deal with Paramount. After reading the New York Times Magazine cover story, Saturday Night Live’s first female head writer asked to buy Wiseman’s film rights to Queen Bees.
“It was very much a ‘we’re doing this together’ kind of experience,” the public speaker said about the proposal, ending up choosing Fey among many other film offers.
From there, Fey turned Queen Bees into a blockbuster film people know as Mean Girls today. She consulted on the movie, which earned $130 million at the box office worldwide out of its $17 million budget, which doubled with the inclusion of its marketing and PR costs.
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Though she admitted Fey “clearly recognized and acknowledged” her as the source material, which she said had been “used and recycled” for the last two decades, she seemed to “deserve nothing.”
“For me, having a female writer and not having that happen has not only been difficult because of the money, but it’s also been painful, very painful,” she stated. “It’s really what my work has been about, especially Mean Girls. Women don’t have to be best friends — we can get mad at each other, but when it comes down to it, we need to actually support each other. That has been especially hard as a writer to writer.”
Rosalind Wiseman Didn’t Earn from the Musical, Too
Wiseman also revealed to The Post that her agent called Fey and Paramount to ask if she could deal with a theater producer to make a Mean Girls musical but was told no.
Instead, Paramount used the agent’s request to stop her from being paid for the musical, claiming it meant she knew she had no ownership of her story’s rights.
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“What’s hard is that they used my name in the Playbill,” she continued. “And Tina, in her interviews, said I was the inspiration and the source, but there was no payment.”
She, too, claimed that she had never been paid when she worked with Fey to produce an educational program for high schoolers doing their own musical productions and worked with cast and crew.
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