Is “Jennifer’s Body” ready to come off the ice?
The cult horror film starring Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried and Adam Brody is nearing its 20th anniversary, but sequel talk has moved at a steady clip in the years following its 2009 release. Seyfried and Brody, in contention for Emmy nominations this year, recently reunited for a roving “Actors on Actors” conversation where Variety got important updates on the second film.
“We’re making another one,” Seyfried told Brody definitively during their chat.
“I heard, what can you tell me?” he asked in return.
In the original movie, “Mamma Mia!” star Seyfried played Anita “Needy” Lesnicki, the wallflower best friend of bad girl Fox (the titular Jennifer). Brody played Nikolai, lead singer of the aspiring rock band Low Shoulder. When the girls head to a local dive bar to see them play, Brody’s character reveals bigger plans for his groupie Jennifer — a ritual sacrifice that will kill her and bring the band massive fame. Some problems arise in the fine print and Fox is transformed into a flesh-eating demon.
Seyfried let on that the sequel is being spearheaded by producer Mason Novick (“Tully,” “500 Days of Summer”), who made the original with Jason Reitman and Daniel Dubiecki. And while we don’t want to spoil a 16-year-old movie, we feel safe saying that Brody and Fox’s characters perish in the end.
“Are you going to do it?” Seyfried asked Brody of the next film, who said he hadn’t been contacted about the project but noted that his character died.
“But so did Megan, and I’m not doing it without her,” Seyfried said, pitching Brody to play the devil this time around. She also suggested that original director Karyn Kusama (“Destroyer,” “The Invitation”) may be in the mix to return and that the pair had been trying to work together again after the first film.
Considered a flop when the former 20th Century Fox brought it to theaters, the original grossed $31 million at the global box office on a $16 million budget. Pressure was high on Fox, who had broken big in Paramount’s “Transformers” franchise. The same was true for “Jennifer’s Body” screenwriter Diablo Cody, who had just come off an Oscar win for “Juno.”
But enduring fandom, the advent of streaming and discovery on platforms like TikTok have given “Jennifer’s Body” a strong cross-generational audience base. The movie was just shouted out on Benito Skinner’s coming-of-age comedy “Overcompensating.”
Brody wondered to Seyfried what the second film should be called.
“Needy’s Body,” she said.
