"Mean Girl" Tina Fey paid me nothing for hit franchise, says author
* Rosalind Wiseman is the author of “Queen Bees & Wannabes", a non-fiction guide for parents of girls, which describes female high school social cliques & school bullying.
* Tina Fey read the book in 2002 & suggested to SNL producer Lorne Michaels that it could be turned into a film. At Michaels' suggestion, Paramount Pictures purchased the rights to the book. Wiseman was paid about $400,000.00 for the film rights.
* Tina Fey wrote the screenplay and created the characters and plot, partially based on her own high school experiences. Lorne Michaels produced the film.
* In addition to the original 2004 film, which grossed $130 million worldwide on a $17 million budget, there have been a made-for-tv sequel movie, a stage musical, a novelization & a cookbook, an iOS game, a comic book, and a variety of products inspired by "Mean Girls". Work has also begun on a new film based on the musical.
* Wiseman says, "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 says that she chose to work with Fey above multiple other film offers. “It was very much a ‘we’re doing this together’ kind of experience... We created this thing, Tina took my words, she did an extraordinary job with it... I’m clearly recognized and acknowledged by Tina as the source material, the inspiration. I’m recognized and yet I deserve nothing?”
* In signing her original contract, Wiseman signed away in perpetuity all rights to original motion pictures and derivative works, including musicals and TV projects - although she said there was no discussion of any other projects at the time.
* Wiseman acknowledges that she signed away her rights, but feels that the film has generated so much money that she deserves more compensation.
“Just because you can doesn’t make it right... Yes, I had a terrible contract, terrible, but the movie has made so much money..."
* Her original contract included net profit points: extra cash dependent on how well the movie fares at the box office. Wiseman says that Paramount insists it has made no net profits from “Mean Girls”. Wiseman’s lawyers now want to audit Paramount’s books.
* Wiseman says that a theater producer contacted her decades ago about making a “Mean Girls” musical, but Fey & Paramount told her she had no right to proceed. When the Mean Girls musical opened in 2018, Wiseman's name was mentioned in the program, and Fey gave interviews naming her as the inspiration and source, but Wiseman received no additional money.
* Wiseman says "I did a workshop with the cast and the crew about bullying because they were going to get inundated with kids who were talking to them about their stories... I gave Tina so many notes as I knew high schools are going to use “Mean Girls” for their school musicals and I thought we were working towards this education program... They never compensated me for the training I did for the cast and the crew".
* Wiseman was invited to a party for the Broadway premier in 2018 and was upset when she realized how many Paramount execs had no idea who she was, and that the cost of the lavish party was probably more than she had been paid. “I realized that night that nothing was going to happen with the educational program and that made me really angry. That’s when I reached out to my lawyers and they pushed Paramount and said, ‘How can you be doing this to her?'”
* Wiseman says that it took years for her to come forward because "I was so focused on me not whining or trying to trash Tina... that’s just not who I am and it’s almost disrespectful to the content of what we were doing... I believe really strongly when you’re in a position of power and privilege that you have a responsibility to share that to create equity.” She feels that Fey's public statements about women supporting other women are hypocritical because Fey has not reached out to help her.
Sources: 1, 2, 3