Despite the obstetrical impossible, Mean Girls has labored to deliver Mean Moms – a follow-up of sorts to the Lindsay Lohan-starring comedy. It also stems from an advice book written by Rosalind Wiseman, and shares a producer in Jill Messick. Plus, the logline in exactly the same, but in reverse: “A happily married mother of two moves from small town America to the high class suburbs and is faced with confronting the cutthroat world of competitive parenting.”
Replace bitchy teenage girls with bitchy mothers, and you’ve got a movie. Or it’s close at least. Variety is reporting that New Line has hired writing partners Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (The Vow) to rewrite the current script. It’s also important to note that Kohn and Silverstein have been behind Cubic Zirconia Era rom-coms like He’s Just Not That Into You and Valentine’s Day (where they earned a story credit).
This may be an unfair comparison, especially with that resume, but it seems unlikely that they’ll be able to craft something as sharp and still human as Tina Fey did with Mean Girls. There’s a huge difference between character and caricature, so far this team’s writing doesn’t show that they know that difference. Is there any chance this next project won’t be a movie version of Real Housewives of Wherever?