Summary
- Diablo Cody wants to write a sequel to Jennifer’s Body (2009).
- Cody rose to prominence after winning an Academy Award (Best Original Screenplay) for the coming-of-age film, Juno (2007).
- Despite the initial disappointment, Cody is now happy that people are appreciating Jennifer’s Body and has no bitterness toward its past struggles.
“As boyfriends go, Paulie Bleeker is totally boss: He is the cheese to my macaroni.” Fans of writer Diablo Cody know the dialogue from the award-winning Juno all too well. After all, the coming-of-age film led to Cody receiving the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for her work on Juno at the 2008 ceremony. But it is Cody’s work on Jennifer’s Body that the author wants to revisit in the form of a sequel. Cody said during an exclusive interview on The Boo Crew podcast (per Bloody Disgusting):
YES! I wanna do a sequel. I am not done with Jennifer’s Body.
Cody added:
“I just need to find… I need to partner with people who believe in it as much as I do and that hasn’t really happened yet. I need someone to believe in it who has a billion dollars […] I mean it’s gotten progressively happier for me. At first, I was like, I was excited about it, obviously. But I was also a little bit salty because I remember thinking, ‘Well, where was this audience when the movie came out?'”
Despite working steadily over the years following the release of Jennifer’s Body, and amassing credits which include The United States of Tara, Young Adult and Tully, Cody hasn’t been able to achieve the same critical success she garnered thanks to Juno.
Jennifer’s Body: Why the Film Went From Hated to Loved in a Decade
Despite its initial box office blunder, it’s safe to say that Jennifer’s Body is regarded as a genuine cult classic today, and therein lies its power.
Check Out Jennifer’s Body
Diablo Cody returns to the horror genre with her latest screenplay, which was written for the upcoming Lisa Frankenstein. Back in 2009, the Megan Fox-led Jennifer’s Body flopped at the box office. Nevertheless, Cody still has hopes of revisiting the material in the form of a film sequel. Cody said during the same podcast:
“It [Jennifer’s Body] was a critical, commercial failure. I was pretty humiliated to be perfectly honest with you. It was a rough experience having that movie come out. It was rough for me, it was rough for Megan [Fox]… [then] people started suddenly talking about it like it was a good movie, which I had thought all along.”
Cody added:
“At first I just thought, oh where was this audience when I needed it and then I realized they were like… seven. And then some people who maybe didn’t appreciate it at the time have come around and now I’m just like, there’s no saltiness, now I’m just happy.”
The film made only $31.6 million worldwide during its original theatrical release, but Jennifer’s Body remains one of the funniest horror comedies of all time. Critics lambasted the quirky film, which resulted in the movie registering a mere 46% on the Tomatometer. Meanwhile, fans seem to despise the flick even more, as it currently holds a 35% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Jennifer’s Body is available to stream on Max, at the time of this writing. And Lisa Frankenstein opens in theaters on February 9.
For those horror fans who haven’t seen it yet, check out co-star Amanda Seyfried revisiting the film in a 2023 video, courtesy of Vanity Fair (below):
