Diablo Cody says Jennifer’s Body 2 will show a more sympathetic Jennifer
Diablo Cody says Jennifer’s Body 2 will cast Jennifer Check in a more sympathetic light — honing in on some unexpected sides of her character.
Right, after years of watching Jennifer’s Body build its cult reputation from an awkward horror-comedy oddity into a proper fan favourite, we’re actually getting a sequel. And if you were worried it’d just be Megan Fox’s Jennifer strutting around chewing scenery (and, well, lads), screenwriter Diablo Cody wants you to know she’s got more in mind. She recently got into the character’s emotional scrapes on the Petticoat Revolution podcast, looking to go deeper than the demon bit this time round.
Lonelier Than You Remember
Cody made it clear she’s never really seen Jennifer Check as just a gleeful monster. For her, the real meat of the character is in how isolated and battered she feels, even before the ritual and demon business kicks off. People supposedly fixate on Jennifer’s more iconic — and borderline ridiculous — lines from the first film. But there were quieter, pretty devastating moments that Cody reckons don’t get enough notice. She gave Fox plenty of credit for nailing both those sides, and says there’s even more of the sympathy and loneliness in her plans for the next film.
Here’s Cody laying it out on the podcast, with thanks to Bloody Disgusting for grabbing the words:
‘Jennifer is a sympathetic character for me, before and after the transformation. I mean, she is very isolated, she’s very lonely, she’s very insecure. Everybody remembers Jennifer when she’s like, ‘I am a god,’ or when she’s at her most radiant and at her most powerful. But people forget about these moments in the movie where she’s like a shell of herself, she’s just exsanguinated almost. And to me, Megan played both of those sides of Jennifer so well.’
She went on to say she can’t give too much away about this new project just yet — standard — but did say the sequel let her ‘explore even more about why Jennifer is sympathetic and what she's been through’. There’s apparently a good bit of emotional pain and isolation underpinning all the demon carnage. If none of that is what you remember about the first one, frankly, that’s part of her point.
How We Got Here
Looking back, it’s easy to forget Jennifer’s Body barely made a splash when it first hit cinemas in 2009. The film was directed by Karyn Kusama, with Cody on script duties, and featured Megan Fox as the popular but ill-fated Jennifer Check — murdered by indie band Low Shoulder in a truly botched satanic ritual meant to boost their career. Instead, she ends up demonically possessed and ravenous for boys, while her nerdy best friend Needy (played by Amanda Seyfried) cottons on and tries to save her dopey boyfriend, Chip (Johnny Simmons).
Jennifer’s Body was first released back in 2009 and has since grown into one of horror’s most beloved cult films.
It took years, but the film finally found its audience. The odd blend of horror, deadpan comedy, and all that snarky teen angst started to look a lot cleverer in hindsight — which might explain the greenlight for a sequel now.
Making a Sequel — Finally Unleashed
The long road to Jennifer’s Body 2 has been painted by Cody as something of a creative do-over. On The Boo Crew podcast, she explained it’s hardly your classic studio-mandated, play-it-safe follow-up. Instead, she’s gone in with a kind of reckless, liberated energy, not constantly worrying about repeat viewings or living up to missed expectations.
She also noted how the upsurge in enthusiasm for the original film was part and parcel of her writing process this time, feeding off new fans as much as the script. Cody even got candid, saying this one isn’t just about Jennifer and Needy, it’s about her as well — the sequel’s writing proved a proper catharsis, fuelled by gratitude toward everyone who kept the film alive all these years. She’s under no illusions about how rare it is for a box office flop to get a second go — she basically said it wouldn’t happen without that fresh love.
Producer Mason Novick is fully on board and, in his words, thinks the sequel script is both hilarious and self-aware — not just repeating the first, but skewering it a little, along with the baggage that’s come along since. There are apparently plenty of bits tackling issues they could never have gotten away with last time round.
- Diablo Cody returns as screenwriter
- Megan Fox’s Jennifer to get a deeper, more sympathetic spotlight
- Sequel features both nostalgia and new, riskier material
- Script is irreverent and pokes fun at the original itself
- Current topics and fresher takes promised by the team