‘Mean Girls’ Gives Box Office Some Life With $32 Million MLK Opening

Paramount’s “Mean Girls” and Amazon MGM’s “The Beekeeper” are leading the box office charts on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, as theaters are trying to navigate a post-holiday winter with no major tentpoles on the slate.

“Mean Girls” will take No. 1 with an estimated $32 million 4-day opening, just above its $30 million pre-release projections with a solid result against its reported $36 million budget. The break-even point for this musical adaptation of the 2004 teen comedy is so low in part because Paramount originally greenlit this film as a Paramount+ streaming movie, only to pivot to a theatrical release after strong test screenings.