comment #1

thevisceral says ...

Diablo, Megan and the Kusama chick all can't go away fast enough.

comment #2

George Prager says ...

As the "Wise Man" said to Gore Vidal back in the day, "Shit has it's own integrity." A candy-ass screenplay by Diablo "Box Office Poison" Cody and mealy-mouthed rationalizations by Jason Reitman aren't going to change that.

comment #3

corey3rd says ...

Nothing destroyed this film's box office faster than word getting out on the internet that Megan Fox doesn't go naked in the film. What's the point of putting up with her acting as a fangface?

comment #4

Tom Reagan says ...

I have no respect for Megan Fox on any level. Not even as a masturbation fantasy.

comment #5

MovieBob says ...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/936-Jennifers-Body

They were relying on the presumption of an audience that doesn't quantifiably exist anymore, i.e. teenage boys and their older(looking, for the R-rating) companions who would pack the theater to see the Hot Trash of the Moment doff her top. I don't know that that occurs anymore.

The people making and greenlighting movies like this are all about my age (pushing 30) or older, and they're doing so based on what they remember from when they were "target age": Moping around in teenaged sexual-frustration, eager for a look at ANYTHING naked, ECSTATIC at the discovery of a movie with a "known" hot actress topless. Thanks to the Internet, I don't think that's really the "situation" for "kids today." Just about every 13 year-old boy in the country can call up a topless (or nearly) image of any halfway famous chick he wants with a keystroke; and ACTUAL porn is just another click away. "See the hot chick from Transformers kinda-sorta naked" isn't going to cut it anymore.

comment #6

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

BODY was DOA for one reason: piss poor marketing. Until I saw the print ad the day it opened, I had no idea this was the week the movie arrived. Where were the TV buys? I haven't seen a single commercial.

Doesn't matter if the film is a dog, if you can't sell a horror film starring the Maxim girl of the moment you have no business in movie exhibition.

comment #7

bluefugue says ...

>As the "Wise Man" said to Gore Vidal back in the day, "Shit has it's own integrity." A candy-ass screenplay by Diablo "Box Office Poison" Cody and mealy-mouthed rationalizations by Jason Reitman aren't going to change that.

Ha, I forgot about The Wise Hack! I loved that guy.

comment #8

K. Bowen says ...

It seems extremely hard to launch a sex symbol into film stardom these days. Sexpots get overexposed quickly. They also have questionable appeal to women. Fox is finding herself in that Alba-Lohan line.

Has anyone been turned on as quickly as Diablo Cody? I didn't rush to overpraise Juno. I thought it was a promising but overpraised debut. But man, that is one quick backlash. If she doesn't recover, what does that rush to put an Oscar in her hand seem like, especially in a year of great movies?

comment #9

Goulet says ...

She can always go back to stripping...

comment #10

Chester54 says ...

Couple of reasons for the failure, which I called after the P&I screening in Toronto:

1) It sucks. It's far more pleased with itself than it has any right to be. Audiences, even man-boys, hate the smell of condescension.

2) Boys don't like to see boys get killed by girls. From Ms. 45 (Abel's semi-great first film) on, it's been a bad idea to make that movie.

3) Especially when it's a girl movie. Ms. Fox, who can't speak a line that doesn't seem false, isn't sufficient draw.

4) It's not scary.

The announcement, made back when Fox Atomic was going to be all the rage (remember Fox Atomic?), struck me then as a purely cynical construction and I'm glad to see its failure.

The only person I worry about here is Mitch Glazer, who finally got his movie to come together with Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox (ICM was selling it in Toronto) and now he's going to have to figure out how to direct her when it's so amply demonstrated she can't carry a movie.

comment #11

Terry McCarty says ...

Chester54 wrote:
2) Boys don't like to see boys get killed by girls. From Ms. 45 (Abel's semi-great first film) on, it's been a bad idea to make that movie.

SUDDEN IMPACT ought to be considered an exception.

comment #12

Terry McCarty says ...

Credit should also go to Warner Bros. marketing for creating an inspired Informant! campaign that suggested a brisk comedic attitude and which actually bore similarities to the film itself....unusual!

Thought that the font used for the titles, Hamlisch's score (reminding me of his work for Woody Allen on TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN) and the overall aesthetic/dramatic approach suggested a 1968 Warner Bros/Seven Arts release co-directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Hy Averback.

comment #13

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

MovieBob has it right. I was 13 when Titanic came out and most of the boys I knew were quite happy to sit through a 3-hour film for a brief flash of tit. And movies like Wild Things and American Pie were must-sees on account of the nudity. Now, what's the point? 13 year-old boys have all the boobies they want at the click of a mouse.

Megan Fox is the '00s version of Denise Richards.

comment #14

Postavant says ...

The ONLY reason for Jennifer's Body bombing was the absolutely dreadful marketing that came along with it. Every single commercial for the film painted the film entirely different from the other, and the level of identity crisis going on with what the movie was was just staggering. They literally covered almost every genre and possible storyline they could, sometimes back to back. It was embarrassing.

Blame 20th Century Fox, not Megan Fox.

comment #15

Travis Crabtree says ...

Bosh.... you were 13 when Titanic came out?! Jeez, I'm old.

I said J's Body would make a ton of money. Dee Zee retorted that it wouldn't because horror/comedies tend not to.

DeeZee was right. Credit where credit's due and all that.

comment #16

Travis Crabtree says ...

BTW.... has anybody else, (besides me), taken to shrinking their window to a narrow strip in order to read the posts without being pelted by stereo M. Moores on either side? It's quite calming.

comment #17

Rothchild says ...

It was the marketing. And anyone who's saying Diablo's career's over never liked her in the first place and has their head up their ass.

comment #18

Gogocrank says ...

The Diablo Cody "backlash" was there well before there was a backlash. I don't know anyone that saw "Juno" way back when, before anyone knew Cody by name, that didn't bristle at the first 20 minutes of dialogue/slang. And even once she became a known quantity, I'm not sure I read any praise of hers that didn't come affixed with an asterisk denoting the dialogue's preciousness. And then she won the Oscar, and got the EW column, etc. And that's when the Cody backlash proper began, against Cody the personality. Cody the writer was sort of taken with a grain of salt from the start.

comment #19

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

Is Diablo Cody the new Kevin Williamson?

comment #20

George Prager says ...

She's the new Helen Childress.

comment #21

mutinyco says ...

The people who hate DC do so because she did something impossible. Not virtually impossible. Impossible.

She won an Oscar for her very first script. And she also became a micro celebrity.

If you're a screenwriter, you have a better chance of getting hit by an Earth-killing meteor.

comment #22

Momus says ...

People need to stop with this stripper crap. So Cody won an Oscar for an overrated script. Like she's the first or the last person to have accomplished that. Big deal.

comment #23

dangovich says ...

I agree with Postavant, you couldn't tell what type of film this was from the marketing campaign.

comment #24

wwlkd says ...

callie khouri, emma thompson, matt damon, ben affleck, michael arndt all did the impossible too.

comment #25

Hallick says ...

When did such a little morsel of a movie like "Jennifer's Body" become the motherfucking "Heaven's Gate" of horror films? Diablo Cody now has one hit and one flop; one Oscar winner and one future Razzie winner. So she's batting now, what? .500? Oh god yes, her career's COMPLETELY OVER. Just like Ellen Page's after "Smart People" right?

I've never seen so much pressure on such an insignificant film to fail in the hopes of satisfying so many ANGRY sons of bitches who have it in for an actress and a screenwriter. You don't like them, and you're not going to their movies - that isn't enough? It's like people wish they could drag these two women out of their homes with torches and pitchforks, tear out their hair, rip off their clothing, and stone them to death while they burn at the stake. With ashes for pissing, the lot of them.

And even if they could do all of that and more, I'd bet they'd STILL be pissed off at Cody and Fox. Suddenly the rage virus from "28 Days Later" is emerging as a dominant national personality trait. Is it like this everywhere?

comment #26

Vernon Hardapple says ...

Wow, Hallick. That was very well put. And dead-on accurate.

comment #27

Momus says ...

Kudos, Hallick.

I'm not a fan of either DC or MF, but gee, blame the moronic suits at film studios, rather than the two chicks, for what is happening to the industry.

comment #28

The InSneider says ...

I don't "like" Megan Fox either, nor do I think she's that hot (I prefer Seyfried) but one thing I will say, and this is the TRUTH, is that she really wasn't bad in JB. The film's failure has little to do with her performance or her perceived lack of acting ability. Her and Seyfried actually had pretty good chemistry. I can see Fox having a Cameron Diaz type career arc. She'd even look good bald in a cancer movie.

comment #29

mutinyco says ...

>callie khouri, emma thompson, matt damon, ben affleck, michael arndt all did the impossible too.

And of these, 3 were already established talents in other fields. And the other two never became celebrities.

Point is: Cody hit the jackpot.

comment #30

Travis Crabtree says ...

Good stuff, Hallick....

I've caught plenty of grief here for questioning the unbridled and (yes, I'll say it... possibly sexist) hatred for Cody.

It's like I told somebody regarding Coldplay... (now, I'm not a fan of Coldplay, don't own any of their music, yet they seem like nice enough guys and the songs I've heard weren't that awful).... with so much godawful shitty music out there, why do people seem to expel so much energy HATING Coldplay?

There are shitloads of bad scripts being sold for millions of dollars (talking to you, Monster in Law) and being made into shittier movies (still talking to you, Monster In Law).... so, why do so many people spend so much effort hating Diablo.

Besides all of that, with all of the complete assholes running around Hollywood she's actually a very nice person.

comment #31

C is for cookie says ...

Now, I actually like Diablo Cody as a writer (don't know much about her as a person to have an opinion about her personality one way or another) but the Coldplay reference above is, I think, a pretty good answer why people tend to hate popular artists like Coldplay, Diablo Cody or Quentin Tarantino.

If something like, say, a Coldplay record comes on and you think it sounds like overproduced crap from a bunch of boys who have never known any real hardship and therefore have no souls, the fact that every other motherfucker on the planet is telling you it's the best thing since they started slicing up bread is upsetting. Can that many people be that stupid? Can that many people have no idea they've been had?

As stated earlier, I like Cody (and Tarantino for that matter) as a writer but if I didn't, and I saw the level of attention she's getting, I could see getting worked up about it.

'Cuz that's the way I feel about Coldplay. When Chris Martin gets his face burned with acid and Gwyneth leaves him, when his manager embezzles millions and he's flat broke and eating out of trash cans, then (and only then) might he start to develop one tenth of the soul it takes to make real art.

But Diablo Cody can keep on keeping on as far as I'm concerned. She's a talented writer with a unique voice who has years of interesting work ahead of her.

comment #32

poseidon72 says ...

Jennifers Body is mediore from beginning to end. Its not scary and only has a few laughs. Fox is OK and Seyfried is fine. There's no real story arc to hold ones interest for its 100 minute running time.

comment #33

DeeZee says ...

"My spitball prediction for the weekend, had I given enough of a damn to make one last Wednesday or Thursday, never would have had Steven Soderbergh and Matt Damon's The Informant! beating Karyn Kusama, Diablo Cody and Megan Fox's Jennifer's Body."

Damon's a mixed draw outside of the Bourne series, but horror-comedies are always wild cards, and I don't see why Megan Fox would have changed the situation. Like I said before, she had her chance with that Pegg movie.

"and that women didn't relate to/didn't want to see the cruelly competitive relationship between Fox's Jennifer and Amanda Seyfried's Needy, or they just don't like Fox."

I think it's more like women don't relate to Fox, since she hasn't exactly shown any acting chops outside of the TF movies.

"Credit should also go to Warner Bros. marketing for creating an inspired Informant! campaign that suggested a brisk comedic attitude and which actually bore similarities to the film itself....unusual!"

The marketing seemed kind of bland to me, so I credit the success of Burn After Reading in creating a new interest in this type of genre.

corey: Alba didn't get naked in 'Chuck, either, and that actually ended up breaking even.

Bowen: Lohan at least has Prairie Home Companion on her resume to enable a possible "comeback". But Alba and Fox clearly don't care about being the starlets guys objectify.

Bosh: Guys didn't endure Titanic for the nudity. They watched it so they could score with their dates. Wild Things was more about the "Did they just get away with that in an R movie?" than anything else. And American Pie was more about pretending that your high school years didn't suck than anything else.

Post: If no one's going to see her in "How to Lose Friends", they're not going to see her in JB.

Travis: Well, in all fairness, I did play off the possibility that it could be a minor hit, because Chuck, You Suck did well. And no, the backlash has nothing to do with sexism, but with higher expectations from a female writer than just cribbing a Lifetime premise. Not to mention higher expectations from an actress than just channeling Heathers. And at least the people behind other bad scripts-with the exception of Bay-know they're bad scripts.

Gogocrank: Actually, the backlash stems more from the irritation over Sophia Coppola's hack writing, and how people didn't want to see a successor in that area elevated simply because of "girl power", more than anything else.

mutiny: The problem is she won an Oscar for an incredibly mediocre script, even by Academy standards.

Hallick: That's what happens when you get over-exposed, and have nothing to back it up.

Momus: The suits were stupid, but the "chicks" in question still thought a little too highly of themselves, too.

Insneider: I've seen legal clips of her online. It's like watching those shitty Death Proof performances with hotter actresses as the lead, but that's about it. Diaz at least can hold her own in a movie, but Fox is just reading whatever is in front of her with absolutely no personality or enthusiasm for the material.

comment #34

Travis Crabtree says ...

I reckon the reason I went easy on Coldplay is because they've never really invaded my space. I don't hear them very often, I'm not really ever around people that are raving about them and they seemed like nice enough blokes based on a 60 Minutes story I saw one night.

Point is, the energy expelled hating Coldplay I would think could be much better used hating the galaxy of badness out there that is worse than they are.

comment #35

cinefan says ...

"I think it's more like women don't relate to Fox, since she hasn't exactly shown any acting chops outside of the TF movies."

What the hell? Where exactly were her acting chops on display in either of the TF movies ("Ooh, I'm being chased by big, scary CG cars! I better remove my bra and put on my Daisy Dukes so I can run away faster."?

comment #36

DeeZee says ...

cinefan: Yeah, sorry, poor choice of words. I meant she hasn't done anything which stands out enough to justify attracting a female audience. Anyway, I'm kind of glad this bombed, because Fox had it coming after snubbing her child fan, even if she was right about Bay.

comment #37

Krillian says ...

I've had a few theories on Jennifer's Body flopping. I don't think it's Diablo Cody's fault. United States of Tara's a decent show, and I enjoy her EW columns. But...

1. Megan Fox is unlikeable to most men and all women. And yet this was supposed to be a horror chick flick.

2. Why watch a horror movie this weekend when we just had Sorority Row, Whiteout, Halloween 2 and Final Destination 4 the past few weeks?

3. Advance buzz was bad. RT was around 37% on Friday.

comment #38

C is for cookie says ...

Travis, I agree that energy used to hate anyone or anything is better spent elsewhere. My preferred stance regarding artists whose work doesn't impress me is to not think about them. In the case of Coldplay I'm around people who constantly talk them up so those feelings come up once in a while.

The old Jean Luc Godard line about the best way to criticize a film is to make a film of your own is probably why filmmakers I don't like don't get under my skin the way bands I don't like do. I can (and do) make my own stuff in the movie world so that level of response is available to me there. But I can't play an instrument or sing in tune so that kind of artistic response isn't available to me in music, even though music affects me as deeply as movies do.

comment #39

raquelswell says ...

It's an R rated movie for teens. But it isn't bloody enough for them.

comment #40

Momus says ...

"Dee Zee
@Momus: The suits were stupid, but the "chicks" in question still thought a little too highly of themselves, too."

Insecurities aside, I think it's a given people think highly of themselves in this business. And in the case of MF it was a barter transaction: promoting a mediocre actress (?) in exchange for selling more copies of mediocre magazines (?). Fair enough for me.

comment #41

JaySmack says ...

Gee, whatever happened to all those DiaBLOW Cody lovers? They were pissing on themselves to defend her a couple years back. I guess these pedophile jackasses got their rocks off with her teen sex "dramedy" (why is it that there's so many degenerates who are PROUD to defend their love of teen sex movies?) and figured Jennifer's Body would be the NC-17 version of the same.
I'd pay good money to see these dung beetles crawl out of their holes (or some person's "hole") to shill for her now.

DiaBLOW Cody did to screenwriting what Michael Bay did to summer movies: she lowered the colective I.Q. 50-plus points, made it okay --and for some people mandatory-- to cheer for pure shit and ran anyone with an I.Q. above room temperature out of the theaters while the fart, piss and sex jokes flew.
Movies for the drooling, MTV crowd. If you like DiaBLOW or anything she's done then please go buy a "I'm dumb as horseshit" T-shirt. You should be sterilized before you pollute the gene pool.

DiaBLOW Cody was given an Oscar as as a prurient "piss off anybody who thinks awards should go to quality," crowd who have taken over Hollywood.
It's the same mentality that made them give an Oscar to 3-6 Mafia.

And I for one am sick and tired of hearing how DiaBLOW is supposed to be the second coming of Orson Welles when in truth she's a slightly erudite skank who wrote some of her wisecracks on a script, made a movie about teen sex (which sadly is dynamite for the drooling trolls who infest movie theaters) and fart and piss jokes.
Her so-called "TV show" on Showtime is dying a quickie death and her attempt to blatantly pimp naked female sexual romping for profit crashed and burned.

Now when Tyler Perry's LONG since dead cross-dressing routine outdoes you at the box-office that oughta tell you and anyone who was ever such a dumbass as to support you, that your 15 minutes are officially over.

Let's bury both BiaBLOW and Megan Sux and let some real filmmakers have the money that would have been wasted on those two.

comment #42

michael says ...

JaySmack, could you please shoot some more of your vitriolic hate around? I don't think you got some on everyone here. Jesus Christ, man, thou doth protest too much. She's just a woman who wrote a screenplay and won an Oscar. Why don't you do the same thing and then you'll be even.
Don't like Michael Bay's movies? Don't see them. Don't like Diablo Cody's films? Don't see them. It's your choice. I thought Jeff was going to get rid of the people who just hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate without end and without pause.

comment #43

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Hallick has obviously spent a lot of $$$ on a lot of Diablo Cody lapdances.

comment #44

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Point is, the energy expelled hating Coldplay I would think could be much better used hating the galaxy of badness out there that is worse than they are."

Or maybe it would be better used actually endorsing the (admittedly smaller) galaxy of goodness out there?

Coldplay is a very bland and soulless band, IMHO. I don't get worked up enough to hate them per se, but I don't have any problem with those that feel so inclined.

comment #45

Gaydos says ...

I confess to not having read every word here, but has anybody noted that the movie has a 23 year old who looks like a 30 year old playing a 17 year old?

juno had an 18 year old who looked like a 15 year old playing a 16 year old. or thereabouts.
---------------------------------
ALIEN INFORMATION INTERUPTION ALERT!!!!

more importantly, how many of you will be at the lacma screening of stavisky on oct. 16?

if orson welles had been grown up when he made kane he would have made stavisky.

END OF ALIEN INFORMATION INTERUPTION
--------------------------------------------
we now return to the megan fox discussion....

comment #46

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comment #47

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comment #48

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comment #49

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comment #50

oyun says ...

you couldn't tell what type of film this was from the marketing campaign.
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