You Can Watch Mean Girls for Free on TikTok, But There's a Catch

It pains us to say it, but it looks like the age of the traditional movie theater is coming to an end. Don't get us wrong, people still love going to the theater to see a new blockbuster movie, but most of the population is relying more on streaming services like Amazon Prime, Max and Netflix to watch new movies from the comfort of their own homes. And it looks like the major Hollywood studios are well aware of this and are trying to come up with new ways to promote their movies to modern audiences.

Even though Paramount already launched their streaming service a while ago, and thanks to hits like Yellowstone and Tulsa King a lot of people have subscribed to it, it looks like the execs are willing to experiment a bit by re-releasing one of the best comedies of the 2000's in a rather strange way.

Watching movies... on TikTok?

Yesterday, Paramount added 2004's Mean Girls, starring Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams, to TikTok, and users of the app can now watch the entire movie for three. But there's a catch!

The thing is, the movie is 107 minutes long, and TikTok limits the length of videos uploaded to the platform. So the producers were forced to split the movie into 23 clips, which makes the idea of watching it in its entirety a rather complicated endeavor.

Ratio issues

Even more troubling to fans is the format that Paramount used to upload the movie to TikTok, as the vertical format of the service prevented the release of Mean Girls in the proper ratio. Instead of simply asking users to flip their phones horizontally, the producers decided to add giant black banners at the top and bottom of the screen and shrink the movie to fit between them. Not an ideal viewing experience, don't you think?

Of course, a lot of people wondered why Paramount would bother releasing such an old movie now, and the answer is simple - the network is planning to release last year's remake of Mean Girl, and TikTok users are its primary audience!