

Released on April 30, 2004, Mean Girls grossed $130 million worldwide and developed a cult following.

The film marks Lohan's second collaboration with director Waters, the first being Freaky Friday, released a year earlier. Filming took place from September to November 2003. Although set in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, the film was mostly shot in Toronto, Canada. Fey was a long-term cast member and writer for Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels produced the film. The plot centers on a naïve teenage girl navigating her way through the social hierarchy of a modern American high school after years of her parents homeschooling her while conducting research in Africa.

Fey also drew from her own experience at Upper Darby High School as an inspiration for some of the concepts in the film. The screenplay is based in part on Rosalind Wiseman's 2002 book Queen Bees and Wannabes, which describes female high school social cliques, school bullying and the damaging effect they can have on teenagers. The supporting cast includes Lizzy Caplan, Jonathan Bennett, Daniel Franzese and Neil Flynn. Mean Girls is a 2004 American teen comedy film directed by Mark Waters, written by Tina Fey, and starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried (in her film debut), Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler and Fey.
