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Page also told Entertainment Weekly how her character is, “'a teenage female lead we’ve never seen before. She dresses like she wants, says what she wants, and doesn't apologize for it.... Girls haven’t had that sort of character before.”

One of the possible reasons as to why audiences haven’t seen such a character before is because once a film goes into production, the writer often has little to no involvement. What’s on the page can sometimes turn into The Invasion. With Juno, Cody was on set and was able to chime in. Speaking to Cinematical, she said, “[Jason] felt that the script was so specific, that the person who wrote it simply had to be involved.” This was generally unheard of for a first time screenwriter. Cody even described the film as better than her script.

For a low budget film, Reitman, Cody and their stars did a lot of press and were happy to promote it, which kept the film on everyone’s radar before and during its release. As highlighted by Gilula, with positive word-of-mouth it became clear that there was no one target audience, for Juno managed to reach a wide demographic. The film was able to appeal to different generations, be it teenagers looking for a high-school dramedy with a difference, or parents getting to grips with children having children.

With Juno one can assume that the reason most studios initially turned it down was because the subject is not one that is profitable. There’s the assumption that studio executives and producers will try to rework a script and during the conversation they’ll start spouting off names of other films - because audiences want to see something like “that film” which “made a lot of money.” With Juno there was no real comparison (the closest probably being serious foreign films). It was a case of taking the template of teenage pregnancy, but telling it in a new way. That Reitman allowed Cody to be on set meant that her script was largely undiluted.

The quality of the script itself and the title character that Cody created felt unique. Producer Russell Smith of production company Mr. Mudd summed Juno up saying, “This movie feels authentic to young people and doesn't cast adults as idiots.” Juno was not the stereotypical high-school teenager that audiences were used to seeing on the big screen. Here was a teenager throwing out smart quips as she speaks her mind, and teenagers themselves were drawn to that (Cody also noted how teenagers were coming out of a screening quoting lines from the film). Cody won a total of 20 awards for her screenplay, including a BAFTA and an Oscar. Along with its worldwide box office, it was proof that originality can be rewarded in a big way.

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