What Went Wrong: Jennifer's Body
By Shalimar Sahota
January 31, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Towards the end of Jennifer’s Body, the lead characters Jennifer and Anita fight in a disused pool house and the two of them end up having an argument about Jennifer being insecure (what with the popular girl wanting what her best friend has). It’s at this point where Jennifer says, “I am still socially relevant.” Taking teen bitchiness to an unheard of level, it’s a good scene made odd due to their exchange of words. Viewing the film today, the line seems to have an altogether different meaning, given the actress that speaks it.
The production of Jennifer’s Body saw a mix of talent come together. Written by Diablo Cody, she was coming off of an Oscar win with Juno and would be reuniting with Jason Reitman, who also came on board as a producer. Actress Megan Fox had reached mega stardom after working on Transformers, its sequel, and for voicing her opinion about Disney. Actress Amanda Seyfried was coming off the worldwide success of Mamma Mia! Calling the shots was the director of Girlfight, Karyn Kusama. The film had a slim production budget of $16 million. Surely this couldn’t fail?
Opening with the line, “Hell is a teenage girl,” the film then spends around 100 minutes proving this with the help of Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer Check (Megan Fox), two teenage high school friends. One night they decide to go check out the band Low Shoulder playing at a bar. However, the bar is mysteriously set on fire and during the escape Jennifer voluntarily decides to go with the band. She is unaware that they plan to use her for a ritual, which unfortunately goes awry. The next morning Jennifer turns up at school as if nothing happened, but as the days go by Anita slowly discovers that her best friend is now pure evil and is eating their fellow students in order to stay alive.
Cody revealed that the character of Jennifer wasn’t based on anyone specific. She instead thought about aggressive female bullies she had known and imagined them as literal monsters. Though she wasn’t a fan of horror, Fox said that she was drawn to starring in the film because of the script, describing it as, “unapologetic and how completely inappropriate it is at all times.” In Empire magazine, Fox described her character as a “spoiled, self-obsessed, narcissistic fuck-up that needs an immense amount of attention from boys.”
Peter Rice was head of Fox Searchlight, and having previously distributed Cody’s Juno to success, he brought her script of Jennifer’s Body and set it up Fox Atomic, the other division where he also happened to be head. As a specialty distributor created to cater to the teen market with low-cost comedies and thrillers, films such as The Comebacks and The Rocker had failed to find success. It was eventually shut down just months before Jennifer’s Body was released. 20th Century Fox ultimately distributed the film.
Box office predictions for the film’s opening weekend ranged from a low of $10 million to a high of $21 million. Jennifer’s Body opened on September 18, 2009. It was one of four new releases that opened wide that weekend. It charted at #5 with a disappointing opening weekend take of $6.8 million. Spending just two weeks in the US top 10, it finished up its run with $16.2 million. Its gross overseas amounted to just $15.3 million. In some territories it was released straight-to-DVD. Even though it featured Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried making out, Jennifer’s Body failed to bring in an audience, earning a worldwide total of $31.5 million.
The film did receive mixed reviews. More female critics found favor with the film against those that hated it (though it’s a very small margin), while most of the male critics slated it.
According to Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations he theorized that the R-rating killed the film’s chances of success. There have been successful R-rated horror films before, but because of the film’s setting and the fact that it was essentially marketed towards teens, most of them unfortunately couldn’t really get in to view the film. Those that did probably snuck in after purchasing a ticket for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (the film that made it to #1 the weekend Jennifer’s Body opened). He also commented on how “the horror-comedy genre is the toughest sell in Hollywood” and cited how once those two genres are merged, “people suddenly get very dumb.”
Bock didn’t say how people get dumb, but I’m guessing that maybe they’re the same kind of people that look at what’s showing at their local movie theater and think about their choices the same way they do when ordering a sandwich, saying to themselves, “Hmm, I’m in the mood for a comedy, but I don’t necessarily want the horror,” and vice-versa. Suggesting that Americans can’t comprehend receiving two genres for the price of one is a bit difficult to accept. But then again, looking back at Grindhouse, they didn’t even budge when they were offered two films for the price of one.
S.T. VanAirsdale of Movieline offered numerous reasons why the film faltered. He seemed to agree that the mix of horror and comedy confused even the critics. Even though the film offered a twist on the typical high school horror setting, the critics that gave the film a negative write up would simply note that it “didn't do enough to adhere to convention.” He also mentioned the overall lack of marketing, saying, “I never saw a single TV spot, billboard, transit poster, lobby standee, or other promotional measure for Jennifer's Body anywhere in New York.” He did note that he couldn’t be sure how the film was marketed elsewhere.
Annalee Newitz of io9 believed that the film failed because it was marketed more towards boys as an R-rated comedy in the vein of The Hangover or American Pie.
A red band trailer was cut to feature Jennifer unzipping her top and telling a guy, “You want it?” It was basically teasing male audiences into thinking that Megan Fox gets them out in this film. The trailer also hinted that Anita and Jennifer will make out (they do); likely done to make guys think that this is a film where two teenage girls take their friendship to the next level. Of the scene where her lead characters lock lips, Cody said, “Obviously we knew people were going to totally sensationalize it.”
Cody and Kusama may have aimed the film at women, but Fox’s marketing was clearly targeting men. “Written and directed by women, Jennifer’s Body is a film made in a women’s genre about women’s problems,” said Newitz, believing that the film would have found success if marketed towards women. Or maybe the film was secretly Cody and Kusama’s multi-million dollar aim to try and convert boys into feminists.
“I don't know if selling the film as a straight horror film and selling it primarily to boys is really going to do any of us any favors,” said Kusama of the marketing when talking to MTV. Newitz seemed sure that fewer women saw Jennifer’s Body, yet 20th Century Fox’s own research during the film’s opening weekend showed that 51% of the audience was female. Successfully drawing in both male and female audiences has to be seen as a good thing. Unfortunately there just didn’t seem to be enough of them to keep the film afloat.
There aren’t many horror films with two females in the lead, one a hero, the other a villain (Ginger Snaps being one of the few that comes to mind). It was actually quite refreshing to not hear the characters talking about their relationships every five minutes. This is exemplified during a phone conversation where Jennifer tells Anita, “I am a God.” Also, Anita is the one who makes an effort to try and save her boyfriend Chip. With this in mind, some teenage boys were probably put off because there wasn’t really anyone on screen they could identify with, especially since most of the guys end up getting killed.
Following Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Jennifer’s Body was Megan Fox’s first film in a lead role with her name above the title. It was perceived that she would draw in a large male audience simply due to her presence. I mean, here’s an actress who was voted #1 sexiest woman by FHM readers in 2008 and was #2 in Maxim’s Hot 100 of 2009. Yet between the release of Transformers and Jennifer’s Body, to some, Megan Fox had managed to become a contentious figure.
Be it comparing Michael Bay to Hitler, or describing how High School Musical is about molestation, her provocative remarks made her distinctive as well as ridiculous. Because of her overexposure in the media, website Asylum wanted August 4, 2009 to be “A Day Without Megan Fox.” Regardless of whatever she did, they weren’t going to write about her and they managed to get other men’s sites to follow suit. It just seemed weird that these sites would boycott her because of the "overexposure" that they themselves helped create.
In September 2009, a few days before Jennifer’s Body opened, a letter signed “Loyal Transformers Crew” appeared on director Michael Bay’s website, claiming Fox to be “dumb-as-a-rock,” “ungracious,” “thankless” and an “unfriendly bitch.” Bay himself said that he did not condone the letter nor Fox’s quotes. She may have made for a great read when it came to interviews or crazy quotes, but she also happened to turn some people off of paying to see her headline a film. People love to hate her. And some girls just don’t want to see a film starring a super hot actress that their boyfriends secretly think about when they’re doing the dirty with them. This is an actress who has said how even when growing up she has “always gotten along better with boys” and girls didn’t like her because of that.
Megan Fox is absolutely perfect for the role of Jennifer, yet the film quite possibly alienated a good chunk of its potential audience simply by casting her. In an interview with The New York Times, Fox described why she thought the film performed poorly at the box office, saying, “the movie is about a man-eating, cannibalistic lesbian cheerleader, and that pretty much eliminates Middle America.”
I missed Jennifer’s Body on the big screen and only got around to viewing it when it was broadcast on TV. I was drawn to the film because of Diablo Cody. As a horror movie, I did not find it at all scary. But then the horror is less about trying to make the audience jump and more about what a teenage girl goes through. As a comedy the laughs are there and I was entertained. Low Shoulder’s sacrifice of Jennifer is done in such a casual way that it manages to be both funny and horribly tragic. Anita’s straight explanation to Chip that Jennifer is evil and Jennifer’s description of Aquamarine are the comedy highlights of the film. Jennifer’s Body stands out for being witty and original, but on the run up to its release, there was unfortunately a lot more working against the film than for it.