The early trailers of the new Mean Girls movie don't really reveal that it is a musical. After all, the Mean Girls 2024 movie is based on the Broadway musical, which is also based on the hit 2004 movie. Now that the film is out, moviegoers are wondering what happened to the song It Roars in Mean Girls 2024.
What is "It Roars" in Mean Girls 2024?
Mean Girls, the Broadway musical, made its debut in 2018. It was based on the hit 2004 movie which starred Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert. And now, the musical has been adapted into a film, which comes full circle. All three were written by Tina Fey.
Now that the film has come out, avid fans of the musical have pointed out that some of the original songs were cut from the movie. One song they looked for is It Roars, which was sung by Erika Henningsen as Cady Heron in the musical.
According to SongTell, the lyrics of "It Roars" give the listener a glimpse into Cady's yearning for connection. After all, she grew up in a safari-like setting surrounded by animals. Even with the natural beauty around her, she feels unsatisfied and lonely.
In the song, Cady welcomes the new change coming her way and looks forward to typical high school things-- even trying out Starbucks.
But as she enters her new school, she realizes that she has to do her best to fit in.
It is similar to the scene at the mall in the original film, where Cady (played by Lindsay Lohan) is reminded of animals in Africa near a water hole with females in heat.
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What Songs from the Broadway Musical Were Cut in Mean Girls 2024 Movie?
Considering the song, "It Roars", is a fan favorite, it makes us wonder why it was left out of the film. But to be fair, there are lots of original songs that did not make it to the film.
In fact, out of the 21 tracks from the original Broadway cast recording, only 13 songs were released in the official soundtrack. And out of that number, some songs were created specifically for the movie.
A total of 14 songs were removed from the stage musical, including all of Aaron Samuels' songs. Only 10 of the original tracks were recorded for the film.
Some of the songs that were not included in the Mean Girls 2024 film include the following:
- It Roars
- Stop
- Where Do You Belong
- What's Wrong With Me
- Fearless
- Whose House Is This?
- More Is Better
- Do This Thing
- Someone Gets Hurt
- A Cautionary Tale
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Why Was It Roars Not in Mean Girls 2024?
According to Polygon and some comments on Reddit, It Roars was replaced in the film to accommodate the vocal range of Angourie Rice, the actress who played Cady in the film.
Composer, Jeff Richmond told Entertainment Weekly:
"The first time Cady [Angourie Rice] sings in the movie has always been the hardest song, even when we were trying to put Mean Girls on stage. We had written a lot of different songs for Cady to open the movie. When we were in tryouts, there was a thing called 'Wildlife' and there was 'It Roars' on Broadway. And then we wrote a couple of versions of that for the movie."
In its place, the producers replaced the song with the more subdued What If?, which was written by Reneé Rapp.
Richmond shares that this song had "really lovely, youthful lyrics" that cemented the way for Rice's Cady to open the film.
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