The original cast members of Mean Girls "all want" to reunite onscreen for a sequel to the 2004 classic comedy, Jonathan Bennett has told Newsweek.
Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried starred as Cady Heron, Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith, respectively, in the high school drama about social hierarchies and their often devastating repercussions. Bennett played Aaron Samuels, the heartthrob who stole Cady's and Regina's hearts.
Over the years, the Tina Fey-written comedy has become a cultural phenomenon, with October 3 being declared Mean Girls Day (for those not in the know, it marks the anniversary of the beginning of Cady and Aaron's romance and the demise of Regina and Cady's friendship).
While Mean Girls has spawned spin-offs over the years, the discussion has persisted over when all of the original cast members will reunite to give fans the sequel they have all been waiting for.
Speaking with Newsweek, Bennett, 43, said that if it were up to him and his co-stars, such a project would most certainly already be in the pipeline.
"I mean, we all want it," the Halloween Wars host said. "Every single actor I've talked to from the original cast would love to do something, but that's kind of above my pay grade at least."
Bennett even has ideas for a sequel. "It's a no brainer," he enthused. "We're all at the exact perfect age right now for us to have 13, 14, 16-year-old kids in high school. It's a no brainer. Like, we've grown up now, and we are the parents of the kids who are 16 in high school. The ages match out perfectly."
The Tina Fey Factor
Of course, he's more than happy to leave the creativity to Fey, adding: "I would love to play Aaron Samuels in any iteration that Tina Fey would like to write him in. She's the comedic genius, and no matter what I'm thinking of doing, Tina Fey's brain has thought of something way cooler... When she writes this hopefully, and we do it someday, I want her to just do what she does."
As for why the comedy has such broad and enduring appeal, Bennett explained that it's all about the relatability.
"The reason that people love it so much is because high school is universal," he said. "No matter how old you are, what generation you come from, what high school you go to, the jocks are the jocks, the plastics are the plastics, the Nerds are the nerds. It will always be that way. That is how every high school is.
"That is why everyone can relate to it, because everyone has gone to high school and had some sort of feeling from that lunchroom that wasn't good, in a way. No matter who you were, there were moments in high school that you felt a certain kind of something. And when you watch Mean Girls, it's one of the universal languages where the movie says, Hey, you feel seen.'"
"I love that everyone kind of is able to have a little self reflection on their high school [days] when they watch it," he continued. "But I also love the fact that it makes so many people happy... I will never get sick of it."
'The Groomsmen' Trilogy
While the fans and the cast members wait for the elusive greenlight on a reunion, Bennett has been busying himself with a number of projects that have seen him dubbed the "Gay King of Christmas" thanks to his projects with Hallmark Media.
Bennett—whose collection of film projects includes 2022's The Holiday Sitter, the first LGBTQ-led Hallmark Christmas movie—is returning to the network with a new romcom trilogy and a reality TV competition.
Marking the first time Hallmark will feature a gay wedding as the lead storyline, The Groomsmen trilogy will follow the "lives and romantic relationships of three best friends of different backgrounds, cultures and sexual orientations," per an official synopsis.
"I had this idea for, like, Hallmark's version of, The Hangover and have a trilogy of movies where you follow three guys through all of their different weddings and bachelor parties and what it really means to be like a groomsman to a group of friends," Bennett told Newsweek.
"I had just gotten married and had groomsmen in my wedding, and I was a groomsman in five or six of my friends weddings over the past like 10 years. So I thought there was a really interesting story and dynamic to share—the guys' side of the wedding process."
"I thought there was a great way to kind of spin it and share that, because it was something we had never seen before," he went on. "And with the popularity of Wolverine and Deadpool and all those movies, it's almost like the the year of the bromance. It's is kind of like a thing in pop culture."
The films will air on Hallmark+ weekly, with The Groomsmen: First Look, debuting on October 17. The follow-ups, The Groomsmen: Second Chances and The Groomsmen: The Last Dance are set to hit screens on October 24 and October 31, respectively.
'Finding Mr. Christmas'
Bennett is also gearing up for the October 31 launch of Finding Mr. Christmas, billed as Hallmark's first ever reality TV contest. The show, which Bennett has co-created and will host, will follow 10 aspiring actors battling it out for a starring role in the Hallmark Channel's upcoming holiday movie Happy Howlidays.
The competition will see the actors complete an array of holiday-themed challenges that will give viewers an insight into just how good of a Hallmark leading man they will be.
"I found a way to gamify the tropes of a Hallmark movie," Bennett said. "So what are the tropes of a Hallmark movie that we love? You have the meet cute, you have the apology scene, you have the kiss under the mistletoe.
"All the things in the Hallmark movies that are in every single movie, we take each one of those tropes and make them a challenge. Each week, they're competing in a different trope, which, by the end, [if] we have done our job right, you will have seen this leading man do all the signature, staple things a Hallmark leading man has to do in every single one of the movies. He [will have] passed the test."
In a case of striking while the iron is hot, the victor's movie will air just one week after the competition concludes. For Bennett, the create-a-star format of the show hearkens back to the days of another classic televised competition.
Explained Bennett: "In Finding Mr. Christmas, the American Idol syndrome is what we talk about while we're in the creation of it. I go, 'Don't forget, Kelly Clarkson syndrome.' Like, what made us fall in love with Kelly Clarkson? Well, we watched her succeed, we watched her fail, we watched her succeed again.
"[We watched her] go on the rollercoaster of growing and changing and evolving and kind of coming into her own right before our very eyes.
"And so that's what we wanted to do with Finding Mr. Christmas... Some are not actors. They're from all different walks of life. We have a Navy Seal, we have a USA athlete, we have a cowboy, we have a firefighter, we have [model] Parker Gregory. They have all different backgrounds."
The Groomsmen trilogy is scheduled to debut on Hallmark+ on October 17. Finding Mr. Christmas, which is set to premiere with two episodes on October 31, will also air on Hallmark+.
