Megan Fox's "Jennifer's Body" *Adam Brody Says 'Body's' Marketing Sucked*

[JamesG]

Jennifer's Body is due for a release in Sept. 2009 starring Megan Fox as a possessed cheerleader who becomes a flesh-eater after her male classmates.

The cast stars Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfreid, Adam Brody, and J.K. Simmons

[JamesG]

Final Jennifer's Body One Sheet the Hottest Ever?
Thursday, July 9, 2009
By: MrDisgusting

As Wayne and Garth would say, "Schwing!"

Joining the ranks of the incredibly hot The Unborn poster featuring Odette Yustman's ass, Bloody-Disgusting got an exclusive look at the final official one sheet for Jennifer's Body, which features star Megan Fox in a skimpy school uniform and showing some serious leg.

Check it out inside and tell us which poster you think is hotter.

Written by Diablo Cody (Juno), the film tells the story of a cheerleader who is possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in a Minnesota farming town. Her "plain Jane" best friend must kill her, then escape from a correctional facility to go after the Satan-worshiping rock band responsible for the transformation.

Fox will release the film in theaters on September 18th

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16702

[JamesG]

Two New Images From Jennifer's Body
Saturday, July 18, 2009
By: MrDisgusting

Below you'll find two new images from 20th Century Fox's Jennifer's Body, which arrives in theaters September 18th.

While you'll find a new look at Megan Fox, inside you'll also find the first official still featuring Amanda Seyfried.

Written by Diablo Cody, the pic tells the story of a cheerleader who is possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in a Minnesota farming town. Her "plain Jane" best friend must kill her, then escape from a correctional facility to go after the Satan-worshiping rock band responsible for the transformation.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16786

[browneyes106]

Jennifer's Body looks good. I like Amanda Seyfried too.

[JamesG]

Jennifer's Body looks good. I like Amanda Seyfried too.

Looking forward to this one too and am also a Seyfried fan.

[JamesG]

SDCC Press Conference: Jennifer's Body
Source: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
July 27, 2009

Horror fans talking with horror fans. That was the vibe I got when 20th Century Fox invited ShockTillYouDrop.com to sit in on a press conference and footage preview for Jennifer's Body, the horror-comedy starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. In attendance was Fox, director Karyn Kusama, writer Diablo Cody and producer Jason Reitman. All wielded a sense of humor and a love of the genre.

Fox, in the film, plays a high school student whose body becomes a vessel for seduction and destruction when she is possessed by a boy-eating demon.

Without further adieu, here's the conference...




Question: Megan, how freeing was it for you to play a character like this?

Megan Fox: Well, I think what I loved about the movie is how unapologetic and how completely inappropriate it is at all times. That was my favorite part about the script and the character. It's fun to be able to say the sh*t [my character] gets to say and get away with it. People find it charming.




Question: Talk about the challenges of creating an original horror film in today's market of sequels, reboots and remakes.

Diablo Cody: For me, I was simultaneously trying to pay tribute to some of the conventions that we've already seen in horror, yet at the same time try and turn them on their ear. It's truly a post-modern thriller in that, on one hand, I grew up watching these '80s genre movies - like The Lost Boys - and I wanted to honor that. But at the same time I had never seen this particular sub-genre done with girls and I tried to do a little of both.




Ryan Rotten: Were there any horror films with a strong feminine view that inspired you?

Cody: What's interesting, and this is discussed before, that the last survivor standing in the typical horror film is the woman. So if you think about Nancy, or even Jason's mother, all of the great heroines of horror. Horror has always had a feminist angle to it, in a weird way. It's also delightfully exploitative. It's one of my favorite things about doing a horror film is we got to do a little bit of both.




Rotten: So does this turn the tables? Is there a "final guy"?

Fox: [shakes her head no and grins]

Kusama: I think, also, a lot of horror is about female-ness. Whether it's Carrie or Rosemary's Baby, I feel there's a lot of fear of the female. Or celebration of it, in some weird way. This movie managed to take the fear and the sense that it's the female that ultimately survives and marry that in a really interesting way.




Question: How did you approach the balance of horror and comedy in this while you were writing it?

Cody: When I first set out to write this I intended to do something very dark, very brooding - a traditional slasher movie. Then I realized about a 1/3 of the way into the process I was incapable of doing it. Because the humor kept sneaking in. I have a macabre sense of humor and a lot of the things that happen in this movie are funny to me. I've always said that comedy and horror films are similar in the sense that you actually witness the audience having physical release. They're laughing, they're screaming, it's not a passive experience.




Question: Megan, the vomit scene we witnessed was outrageous. Talk about that. And what other gags do you have in store in this film?

Fox: That day, what I was actually throwing up was chocolate syrup. We did a few takes where I would just do the scream and puke chocolate syrup. Then the special FX department did a rig that clamps onto my ear - and we revisited that in the pool scene which happens later in the movie - it clips around the back of my ear and then I bite down on it on the side of my face. It's a tube and projects whatever that material was.

Kusama: We went old school.

Fox: It was pretty intense and I think it was worse for Amanda because she was the one that got puked on.




Question: Did you opt to go more practical with the FX?

Kusama: Yes, it was a choice that we all sort of made organically. We appreciate those kinds of effects in older movies. I question sometimes how much more effective it is to use a ton of CG. We always started with a practical effect then moved forward from there to lay a groundwork for something that is physically, materially there. It was more fun, too.




Question: Jason, this is considerably different from the movies you've been making. Does this scratch any itch for your love of the genre and will we see you do something along these lines?

Jason Reitman: I found Thank You for Smoking do be absolutely terrifying. I've always loved horror films and certainly I go see more horror films than probably any other genre in the theater. I mean, I saw See No Evil in the theater and I still haven't seen 400 Blows. I would love to. I hope I'm as capable of doing it as Karyn is. It's an intimidating genre because certain people can do it very well. I love horror films.




Question: Karyn, how did you get involved in this?

Kusama: I was blessed to read the script at a moment when the producers were meeting with directors. It just knocked me out. It's so original and imaginative. That's what it is about the script and the world, it feels like a fairy tale gone psycho. And I think that's what most fairy tales started as. They've just been neutralized over the years and this story felt old. Coming from old stories, but totally fresh. I went to bat for myself.




Question: Megan, was there any apprehension about taking this role? And how did your acting process change from what you're used to doing?

Fox: You mean from Transformers? [laughs] There were no distractions here. There's no robots to distract you from whatever performance I do give. So if it's terrible, you're going to f**kin' know that it's really terrible. That, of course, is intimidating. But the character was so much fun for me, I wasn't really sure what I was doing. I was just trying to have fun with it. I felt I was able to make fun of my own image, how people perceive Megan Fox to be. I was just flying freely and I hope some of it works.




Question: How sexy can this movie be?

Fox: Oh, this movie is so sexy - you better put on your f**kin' sexy shoes! [laughs] There's a relationship that happens between my character and Amanda's character that is, depending on who you are, a common relationship you grow up with or not. But there is a hint of a lesbian relationship that happens. There's a girl-on-girl kiss. But I feel like it's an homage to that but we also poke fun at how homogenized horror movies have gotten. Before every kill there is a seduction that occurs so these boys have to be seduced to get close enough to this dead girl for her to devour them. It does get pretty sexy.




Question: Karyn, all three films you've done now portray different levels of violence. How would you say you tackled each one? Is there a different approach or are they all the same?

Kusama: It's definitely different in each movie. With Girl Fight I think it was important to actually be authentic to the world of amateur boxing and the emotional dynamics in the ring.

I think with Aeon Flux there were some approaches but that didn't reflect that entirely. There was a different interest in the way the body moves through space that was interesting to me.

With this film, it was important to know that the mechanics of violence, as a movie tool, for instance, when Jennifer pukes, it should be black as tar and it should come out big and loud. Be a shocking moment. I think in a way, somebody mentioned the movie feels over the top, I think it was important to know when to go there and not back down from feeling like a genre movie while trying to keep it real between the characters and keep the world real.




Question: Was there ever a push and pull with the MPAA? Was there a consideration to get this down to a PG-13?

Reitman: It was always going to be R.

Kusama: The language alone...




Question: Some filmmakers do horror before they break through with films like the ones you all have done, but you're going back in some respects. What is that saying about the filmmaking climate and trends?

Cody: It's a personal passion to me. Horror is better than anything I could have done building to this.

Reitman: You're with a generation of filmmakers here who grew up on horror. We're also of the VHS generation as well.

Kusama: You can watch a lot of horror and, like a Pandora's Box, crazy sh*t just keeps coming out of that box. You can find so many amazing movies. I look at the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and feel like it's a crazy art movie that happened to become a youth-quake event. That movie would never get made now, not in that way. It's been remade in a different way, but in a way horror speaks to all of us. It's definitely the genre to try to get to and try to achieve in my opinion.

Reitman: I remember cracking open my father's laserdisc for A Nightmare on Elm Street. Truly one of the coolest movie moments of my childhood and I can't imagine dangerously opening a broad comedy in the middle of the night and hoping I wouldn't get caught. The idea that there will be a kid out there opening a Blu-Ray of Jennifer's Body is pretty exciting to all of us.

Cody: This is totally going to be that movie 11-year-old boys are going to go after.

Kusama: And the 11-year-old girl. It's a crazy enough movie...somebody asked about when I got into the process, when I read the script, the first thing I felt, viscerally was, man, when I was 17, if I was just a younger person right now, this is the movie I would see 10 times in the theater. I just feel a pull towards it that speaks to me. It's not intellectual, it's emotional. The best horror and the best comedies just speak to you on this visceral level.




Question: Megan, are you drawn to horror films to?

Fox: I'm actually not. I don't ever watch scary movies because I have a very intense fear of the dark. The last movie I saw was The Tooth Fairy and it was out in 2005 or something, I was like 15 and I slept with my mom for two weeks after. I get really affected by them.

I think for me to play something I normally would be frightened by was intriguing to me. I saw this movie doing ADR recently and I didn't realize they had done more sound design since the last time I had seen it. We were watching the clip I was going to add a scream to and I remember the scream I had done on set, so when it got to that part I literally jumped and screamed inside the looping booth. It frightened me. I was shaken up for five minutes and couldn't do my ADR. So it's cool to see myself scaring people. Because I'm just a little girl, look at me, I'm so sweet. [laughs]




Question: Diablo, the clip we saw had a cameo by you. Is that all we see?

Cody: That's it. And I think that was a pity shot.




Question: How important is the music in this film?

Kusama: The music is a huge component to the movie - the songs we see and hear performed - and just the vibe of movie as it progresses it becomes a music-oriented movie. Some of the band posters in the bar scene you saw were made up.

Cody: I really wanted Screeching Weasel bad. That was important.




Question: Are there a couple of horror movies that stand out for you all?

Kusama: I'm a Near Dark junkie. I need to see that movie every year just to get through life.

Cody: My all-time favorites are Rosemary's Baby and Don't Look Now.

Reitman: I'm a Shining guy. The imagery really stayed with me. The original Alien, too. My father took me camping when I was a kid and told me the entire film as a campfire story. His continued though. They made it back down to earth. Later, when I finally saw the film I realized I knew exactly where everything was going to go. Honestly, I was young enough to have a moment of, "Oh my God, they ripped my father off."




Question: The bar fire sequence reminded us of the Great White performance in Rhode Island that happened. Did that inspire this scene?

Cody: Not specifically. That's come up a few times. To me, I'm afraid of fire and pyrotechnics which is weird why I asked to be in the scene.

Kusama: You asked to be set on fire, do you remember?

Cody: That was me trying to conquer my fear. By the way, they would not let me do a full burn. I argued Burt Reynolds did it once. There's nothing more terrifying to me than being stuck in a claustrophobic space that's burning down.




Rotten: Diablo, are you going to get behind the camera now?

Fox: I've noticed all of your questions have been for Diablo. [laughs]

Rotten: I'm waiting for you on the red carpet.

Cody: I'll direct for you. If I did direct I would want to do a horror film, I don't know if that will ever happen.


http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/comicconnews.php?id=11207

[browneyes106]

Great interview. I can't wait to the comedy parts of the movie.

[JamesG]

Great interview. I can't wait to the comedy parts of the movie.

Yes, I'm lookig forward to this one. I think it's going to be good. Great to see something that's trying to be new.

[JamesG]

SDCC: Megan Fox Talks Jennifer's Body FX
Source: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
July 29, 2009

On the red carpet at the 20th Century Fox Jennifer's Body in San Diego, I had some brief one-on-one time with star Megan Fox. Did we talk relationships? Nah. We gabbed about makeup. Makeup FX that is.

The actress says that when her demonic counterpart is revealed in the Karyn Kusama-director horror-comedy, it's not just her that's doing the nasty bit 'o business of chewing up boys. "I actually wasn't in [the makeup chair] that much because they created an entire head," she said. Handling the film's FX is KNB. "They did a live cast of me from the shoulders up. They created me and then put the teeth in. To save my face, they had a photo double that would come in and do most of the crazy monster makeup - they would do that on her. So it would go from me, then in post-production it would somehow go to her and the fake head. They would mix them all together."

Another delicate balance came in the film's humor. Fox says she relied mostly on Diablo Cody's script and Kusama's direction to pull it off for a good reason. "I have a very specific sense of humor, things that I think are funny aren't going to fly with middle America. It's going to eliminate some of the audience, so you need someone there to tell you you can't do that."

Jennifer's Body opens in theaters on September 18th.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/comicconnews.php?id=11239

[JamesG]

Megan Fox Takes a Beating in New Jennifer's Body Image
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
By: MrDisgusting

It looks like Megan Fox's character won't be wooing the males for the entire hour and a half of Jennifer's Body.

Beyond the break you'll find a new batch of hi-res stills from 20th Century Fox's film, one of which featuring a look at a bloodied and broken Megan Fox.

Written by Diablo Cody (Juno), the film tells the story of a cheerleader who is possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in a Minnesota farming town. Her "plain Jane" best friend must kill her, then escape from a correctional facility to go after the Satan-worshiping rock band responsible for the transformation.

The horror-filled summer continues on September 18th.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16967

[JamesG]

And Now, A Special Message from Megan Fox
Source: Break.com
August 12, 2009

Megan Fox has got something to say. She ate your boyfriend today. Doesn't matter much to her...

Ahem, pardon me.

In this PSA she comments on peer pressure and high school life. If you think it's serious, it's not. It's just the cusp of a viral campaign that's beginning to kick in for the upcoming horror-comedy Jennifer's Body by director Karyn Kusama and writer Diablo Cody. Cute approach.

http://www.jennifersbody.com/
http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=11396

[browneyes106]

lol that PSA spoof was pretty funny.

[JamesG]

TIFF '09: Bite Your Tongue, New Jennifer's Body Image
Monday, August 17, 2009
By: MrDisgusting

The Diablo Cody scripted horror film Jennifer's Body is set to premiere at the "Midnight Madness" portion of the TIFF and we've got our hands on one new still that will have you biting your tongue.

The story of a cheerleader who is possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in a Minnesota farming town. Her "plain Jane" best friend must kill her, then escape from a correctional facility to go after the Satan-worshiping rock band responsible for the transformation.

Keep up with all of our TIFF coverage by clicking here. Now read on for the still.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/17089

[JamesG]

International Jennifer's Body Poster
Source: Aullidos
August 26, 2009

Our Spanish brothers over at Aullidos nailed a look at the Spanish one-sheet for Jennifer's Body. I kind of prefer it over the American art. What do you think?

Also, for those in the UK, the release date has changed to November 6. We get it in the States on September 18.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=11529

[browneyes106]

The Spanish poster is pretty cool too.

[JamesG]

Hollywood Jennifer's Body Event Announced
Source: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
September 3, 2009

20th Century Fox and Hot Topic have banded together for the Jennifer's Body premiere.

But this isn't just any red carpet event.

At the Hollywood & Highland center in Hollywood, the cast and crew will be gathering for a Q&A and Panic at the Disco (featured on the soundtrack) is playing. Details on how to attend below...

[platinumblondelife]

I'm so ready for this to come out...or at least leak online.

[JamesG]

Exclusive Interview: Jennifer's Body Director Karyn Kusama
Source: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
September 9, 2009

Of course, the restaurant I plan to meet Karyn Kusama on a week day afternoon in Los Feliz is closed. Of course. And, while I stand in front of the entrance, back turned to its empty bar and tables within, and wait for the Jennifer's Body director, I rattle off in my head just how many female directors I've interviewed in the last ten years. I could only think of Jennifer Lynch. And that was recently, too. Yes, it's sad but true.

There have been a ton of actresses I've spoken to (they multiply like gremlins), the occasional producer (Gale Anne Hurd) and screenwriter. Directors? A measly one.

That's not to say there are no female horror directors. They do exist. Hell, one brought what I consider one of the best horror films of the decade to the screen, American Psycho (Mary Harron). Alas, the genre, when it comes to the director's chair, is without question male-dominated.

Kusama is entering the cinematic abattoir with two features under her belt. 2000's Girlfight, which introduced us to tough girl Michelle Rodriguez, and the troubled Aeon Flux (2005), a live-action take on the MTV toon and an experience Kusama has no problem speaking frankly about.

Jennifer's Body is her return to the studio trenches and this time she's turning Megan Fox (as Jennifer Check) into a teenage boy-eating demon with the help of Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody. Amanda Seyfried plays Needy, a young girl in the town of Devil's Kettle who, after a tragedy at a local bar and concert, has to come to grips with her bff's possession.

On time, Kusama meets me in front of the restaurant. Bespectacled and incredibly amiable, she recommends the joint across the street so we make our way there for lunch and a candid chat about her horror-comedy, working with Fox (the actress), Fox (the studio) and more.



Ryan Rotten: Post-Aeon Flux were you so eager to jump back into another genre film or did you keep your mind open to anything?

Karyn Kusama: I looked at a bunch of stuff. I read some books. I read a couple of script. Then I got Jennifer's Body and I just felt like so emotionally aligned with it. I just felt like, "I know those girls, I was one of those girls."

I totally understand feeling a little smarter than where you're coming from, but not having any of the social graces to really articulate that. Just this wanting to escape and hanging onto the past. Worshiping beauty the way the rest of the world worships beauty. I just connected to the script on that level first, then found it tremendously funny. I also just found that the horror, to me, the stuff that felt was genuinely suspenseful and scary was much more kind of emotionally bound up in the relationship between the two girls.

I grew up in the Midwest. I understand a sense of the small town mentality, small town social politics. I just felt like I get this world and I really, really loved the fact that it had this subverted fairytale kind of structure where in the end it's Needy who has to save Chip, save herself and deal with Jennifer.

That she really has to become an adult over the course of the movie and that was powerful to me. I know the movie plays like a crazy, fun genre film, but I hope that there's something a little bit emotionally richer.




Rotten: Was there predominantly a stronger connection to Needy or was it Jennifer, or was it both?

Kusama: It's both. I think it's pretty obvious I was much more Needy as I grew up. I was much more nerdy, but I was always pretty comfortable with myself being the nerd and proud of it, which I think is part of Needy's charm. She doesn't apologize for who she is. She's not completely pathetic. But, I also feel like I knew those girls who were so beautiful and so desired by everyone, but who seemed trapped by their beauty.

I always felt like a lot of those girls in my high school always ended up being the ones who had four kids by the time they were 21 and married a guy who happened to gain 200 pounds between high school and college. [laughs] Somehow those girls are put on a pedestal so early that they lose their luster by the time they're of legal age. And all of a sudden, that's tragic. I felt like there was something about Jennifer Check that had that quality of being like, two years away from just being kind of…


Rotten: A train wreck.

Kusama: Yeah, a little bit. There's something about the girls and the boys who just live for the moment and don't think a second beyond their needs and the here and now that ultimately is pretty tragic.

What I loved about Megan's performance as Jennifer was that she actually communicated something of that tragedy because a girl who's only worth her beauty is ultimately not worth very much and that's a problem. But, our society is constantly creating this framework for girls to feel that their only worth is their appearance and it's damaging on so many levels to so many people.




Rotten: Was Megan originally attached when you first came aboard?

Kusama: Megan was attached when I read the script and I actually knew nothing about her. I had not seen Transformers in the theater and had chosen not to do that. I met with her first, really liked her and decided, "Maybe I shouldn't freak myself out and watch ‘Transformers.'" Not because of her, but just because the movie will overwhelm any performance she might have tried to give - which I actually think is the case with that movie.

It's not really a movie for the performances, to put it that way. When we started auditioning Needys, that's really when I saw that Megan had it and understood the character. We were auditioning Needy, so I never had the opportunity to really work with Megan, but we had a week of rehearsal before we started shooting. I felt pretty comfortable. I felt pretty good because she was also prepared, had thought about things, had questions. I just felt like, "Okay, she's going to be fine."




Rotten: What kind of questions? Was there anything specific?

Kusama: Just the history of things. For instance, for young actors I think any love scene or make-out scene is a big deal. For her, she was like, "Okay, I'm comfortable and willing to do this, but is this a first time or not a first time at all?" And I said, "I think it's important that it feel like not a first time at all," because she wants to know, "What are we communicating, a first time seduction, or a dynamic?" And I said, "I think both are interesting, but the dynamic tells us more in the moment, unfolds something about the relationship that we didn't know before and makes us understand Needy a little bit better.

If we understand this is sort of a secret component to their relationship, well maybe it explains some of the kind of emotionally abusive dynamics of the relationship. There's a sexual component to it." Those questions. And, she was always thinking about that stuff. She and Amanda I think bonded very early. They were young enough for themselves while we were shooting to be still like teenage girls. Finding Amanda obviously was crucial because she's really the anchor of the whole movie.




Rotten: What did you see in her audition that you latched on to?

Kusama: What Amanda had that I felt was so clear was a combination of naturalness and inability to make a joke. She wasn't trying to make a joke out of anything. She was playing it real. Then when she would say things that, to me, read as jokes on the page, she would just make them seem real and that's very hard because not everybody can kind of literally wrap their mind around Diablo's dialogue. It's fast, it's very smart, it's very funny, it's slightly heightened at times.

It's imagining a world where kids basically speak in secret languages and they do, by the way, to the world to keep saying, "People don't talk like this." Well, some people do. And, I feel a little bit like the magic is finding those actors who can make that dialogue real, the same with Johnny Simmons. He took some of that stuff and never played it anything but sort of the straight guy. And it just ended up being so much funnier because of it and more touching because he didn't even seem to realize he was funny.




Rotten: Unlike Ginger Snaps, a film this one is being compare to, you don't play the male characters or the adults broad. They're not cartoon characters…

Kusama: Yeah, and that was a very interesting challenge because there was a moment maybe where we could've taken a completely different direction with the adults in the movie and maybe made it this Charlie Brown world where Mom's always working the swing shift and Dads are completely absent. And definitely in my DVD cut there's more presence of the adult world, and, for better or for worse, it was definitely an issue in getting to a finished film whether we could sort of take that outrageousness of some of the language to some of the adult characters.

But, I thought it was really important that we see Needy's mother and then see eventually Jennifer's mother kind of realize, "Oh, these people have parents. Oh, Chip has a mom." There is a very strange absence of fathers, but I think that's very much a kind of reverse fairytale dynamic as well.




Rotten: Off track for a minute, kudos for helping Kyle Gallner disappear into his role. I didn't recognize him at first.

Kusama: Isn't he great? What I loved about him was that he came in to read for Chip and I was like, "Oh, he's not Chip, he's Colin. He's Colin Gray," because he had that kind of feminine beauty that a lot of the Goth kids have. And, he had a kind of drama and I just loved those guys, those guys who wear the eyeliner in high school and have the guts to try out for the theater production of "Hello Dolly," you know what I mean? [laughs] I felt like he was really the right guy.




Rotten: Another off track question. When we first see Jennifer feed, all of these animals come out of the woods. That was a trippy-looking fox you selected - was that real or CG?

Kusama: A real fox and very beautiful in person. All those animals were real and it's a trip to have those many animals in one place because what I didn't realize at the time, until I was schooled, was that those animals don't necessarily get along in nature.

The shooting schedule, we almost had to treat a little bit like, "Okay, there's a diva fox and a diva beaver and they cannot be on set at the same time or it will be war." [laughs] We really had to treat it as if it were two people who just hated each other's guts.




Rotten: Now that you're dabbling in the horror genre, can you talk about your approach to the balance between going for the gross-out and pulling back? Especially for Jennifer's demon attack scenes…

Kusama: We really had to find a balance and maybe the balance won't please everyone because I know that there is sometimes a desire for maybe more gore or more horror elements. But, I felt like every time we took either this scale of the prosthetic effects, the scale of the CG effects too big, the movie became unintentionally funny.

It's one thing to say, "Okay, I want this to be funny here, here, here and here and then I want to slam the audience with something that feels a little bit more real and maybe gravely serious." But, it's another thing to feel a little bit like the audience gets permission to laugh whenever. That's not what the goal was.

I found that when we got too big with those effects it just took us out of the movie and I found we were always trying to scale back and find subtle things that helped amp up a sense of dread or a sense of the character's transformation, but didn't become too campy.




Rotten: There's a particularly great moment when we just see her cupping blood out of this torn open torso.

Kusama: I know. I always feel like that's a really scary moment because she seems like she's not being watched, she's just doing something.




Rotten: And how would you say your second studio feature went, production-wise?

Kusama: After Aeon Flux I feel like I can go through anything. [laughs] This was the perfect balance between a low budget approach - where, for instance, with Girlfight I had 24 days, I had six weeks of prep. It was nonstop work, very fast and very little resources. It was a million dollar movie.

Aeon Flux was a much bigger movie, much longer schedule, much more demanding visual effects and needs. Ultimately, a huge enough studio movie to completely guarantee that when things went south they didn't just go south, they went directly into the bowels of hell.

This movie, we only had six weeks of prep, but we had 42 days to shoot. To me, it felt like, "Wow, this is the perfect balance of having to move quickly and decisively," but it felt like we had enough time. And I think I would love to be able to make movies of this level because it felt really doable. We had money when we needed it, but it never felt like we were just living in this quagmire of just an endless schedule. It was interesting.

My kid turned one my second week of prep and he was up there with me. My nanny was up there and my husband would come up for three days a week every week. I mean, it was more about making it work on a personal level because creatively I felt like all that I needed was there on set for me. I really felt pretty supported.




Rotten: You entered into a family of sorts with Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody.

Kusama: Yeah, Jason was very supportive, Diablo was very supportive and flexible, Mason Novick and Dan Dubiecki were very hands-on real producers. I felt really lucky because I felt like I got a lot of the support that one hopes you get while you're doing something as sort of rigorous and crazy as shooting a movie.




Rotten: A tragedy befalls the town in your film and from that the community finds a song to unify them. Their grief is sensationalized to an extent - was this intentional? It's a delicious satire on some of the things we see in the media.

Kusama: Yeah, a theme of mine that I will find always interesting is how we deal with grief whether it's a sort of broader exploration like this movie, or a subtler approach that even came up in Girlfight, or to a degree at least my cut of Aeon Flux, the questions of how we incorporate loss into ourselves is always going to be interesting to me.

I've always felt like there was something very touching and real even though it's broad in this movie about the way a community tries to feel things. I liked the idea of memorials starting really bountiful, filled with a lot of care, and then just get decrepit and lose the sense of people really remembering. That's something that's very real to me. I think we don't process loss very well and we aren't culturally encouraged to think about it at all. It's a moment of silence. It's a day of remembrance, but it's not really like, "Okay, take this inside of you and keep it there and use it to guide your life." [laughs] No one wants to do that. I think it's too complicated to say.

What I think our big cultural, spiritual mantra is, "Let it go, let it go." Letting it go can be tremendously helpful, but it can also be a way of losing yourself in the process because you never face the thing that could truly transform you in a positive way. I really appreciate Diablo's sense of humor because she's able to find a balance between something purposefully outrageous and cheeky and actually something more emotionally true. I think that's her strength.




Rotten: Diablo take a lot of sh*t for her dialogue.

Kusama: But do people have the same conversation about Quentin Tarantino?


Rotten: His dialogue? They did at one time. Just like they did about Kevin Smith. I'm not so sure now. Those people have moved on to Diablo.

Kusama: It's her interest in language that sets her apart from other writers. When people say to me, "That's not how people talk," it's just like, "Oh, do people talk the way they talk in most movies?" I don't think so.

I think Diablo's interest is in the theater of language itself and you can be down with that and accept that and see the humorous possibilities of it, the moments of trial and error with it. But in the end, I think she's trying things the way any deeply talented writer is trying things. I don't think we've gotten to a point now where there's going to be endless blogs about what a mangling of the rhythms of the English language David Mamet has inflicted upon all of us. I think he's shown himself time and time again to kind of create a work with a distinctive voice, his voice.

I think Diablo's going to be one of those artists who over time, we just understand her voice is really her voice. I think what I find puzzling is the attitude that there's something inauthentic about her writing and her writing is completely authentic to her. And, that's really all that matters to me.




Rotten: What was she like on set when she was around?

Kusama: The thing that Diablo is really open to, and this is completely to her credit as a writer, she can hear a joke and say, "You know what? That joke's not landing. It's not working." She'll come up with something funnier or she'll find a subtler way to navigate out of a line. She's tremendously open to whether or not something is working or not. She's not precious.

For someone who's writing is attacked as frequently as hers is, she's the least precious person I've ever met in terms of kind of taking her words more seriously than anyone else's. She listens to the audience and she doesn't give a **** about what anyone thinks which is also great. But, I feel like part of her writing style is that it's dense. People say lines in rhythms of three lines at a time, or six lines at a time.

That's what's difficult for actors is finding a way into that both as the person saying the line and the person listening to it that can have its own sort of emotional or comic range. That's the tough stuff. She's not going for a kind of kitchen sink realism and that's her choice. I've been fascinated because occasionally I disastrously find myself reading the blogs and the occasional hate fests and it makes me really sad. It makes me really sad about all the people who clearly have a lot of issues with language they want to work out and they have to do it in this forum that's so much about bashing somebody else.

The hostility that you read towards Megan and Diablo in that community makes me feel like they're a bunch of American terrorists sitting in their basement waiting for their dinner to be made by their mom. I hope it's meatloaf.




Rotten: You experienced a bit of a changeover with this film. Because it once resided at Fox Atomic, which was aiming for edgier material, then it was completely a 20th Century Fox film. Did this change the dynamic of what you could and couldn't pull off in the film?

Kusama: I think we were lucky because they bought the script, loved the script, saw a cut, loved the movie and knew always that the bigger challenge with the movie was going to be shaping the expectations of the movie for an audience. It's an ongoing process. And, I think it's a challenging movie. I'm seeing the challenges of it.

I'm sort of sympathizing with our plight a little bit more than I think I would have if I had not seen it from the inside quite so much. It's hard to sell a movie that is so many things. It's hard to decide how much to reveal of the plot, the dynamics of the story and the tone of the story. I hope between some of their materials and some of the materials that we generated a little bit more, the audience out there can see that it's a little bit more complicated than a straight comedy, a straight horror film, a straight high school movie, and see it for what it is which is a fresh take on all of those things. It's hard.

I think there was a sense of resistance a little bit, I think, to something about the characters being more vulnerable and out of control. I felt like that's something that we had to manage for the theatrical cut. I will say that even though I got into my dust ups with the studio, I felt like there was still mutual respect between us and I still felt like they appreciated the fundamentals of the movie which is not always how it works.

I feel really thankful that the movie that's in the theater I feel really good about and the movie that might end up on the DVD I also feel really good about. They're just different.




Rotten: Do you think this whole experience, furthermore the film, would have been different if it had been produced independently?

Kusama: No, I don't think it actually would've been an entirely different film. I think it's just we had a moment in which Diablo had won an Oscar and there was a tremendous, there still is, a tremendous currency to a script written by Diablo Cody. She has a distinctive voice and that means a lot.

Maybe if we had made the movie independently we couldn't have necessarily afforded to do three test screenings. And so, the movie would be different in that it would be a movie we felt our way toward the most layered and appealing version of itself.

My biggest issue with the studio process, and probably a lot of what the independent process has become, is the reliance on test screenings. I feel like it can kill your movie. It didn't kill this movie, but it could've.


Rotten: What was that process like?

Kusama: We tried different things. Certain things emerged that we kind of realized consistently. I would say the most consistent thing we realized, or I realized about the movie is, it's a movie with really appealing characters and most of them die. That's never going to test well. I don't know how you make an audience feel fantastic about that.

If you try to have any complicated relationship with those characters or to those deaths, there will be some kind of division in the testing process. That's just what the story always was with the movie and I don't know if the audiences who go to a movie for free and fill out a form afterwards, I don't really know if that represents your audience. I don't know how much you talk to filmmakers about this part of it, but I think there's a lot of valuable stuff that you learn from screening your movie for cold audiences so much.

I think there's also a lot of information that can lead the film astray. We luckily had a strong enough producing team and a sense of faith in the movie itself from the studio side to not get too out of whack.




Rotten: One director told me he doesn't stick around after the moderator asks to see a show of hands of how many people liked the film and how many didn't like it. After that initial reaction, he said, it's all bullsh*t.

Kusama: The way I've experienced the screenings is that people need a couple minutes to digest what they've just seen. I hope I'm not over thinking it, but I feel like the movie's not completely like fast food entertainment. I think it actually has a little more going on. I really hope so. It's a year and a half of my life.

I feel like a test screening demands that people just assign a worth to a movie the minute the credits start. They get these forms, they fill them out and they want to get to dinner, you know what I mean? It's hard, I think, to expect people to know how to articulate what their feeling is about a movie two seconds after the credits start rolling. That was the biggest lesson of the studio process.




Rotten: Tell me a bit about the soundtrack selection process. The choice of The Sword's "Celestial Crown" playing over that shot of Megan swimming through the water was a nice contrast to that serene setting.

Kusama: I definitely think it was a marriage between us and Fueled By Ramen - the record company that's releasing our soundtrack. We got work with a bunch of their artists and just hear songs that were written specifically for the movie.

For instance, I feel like the Panic at the Disco song that plays right when Chip is getting ready for the prom, there's something about that song that to me feels very kind of in keeping with like, a sort of pop youth surface of today.

And then there's songs like The Sword which I just think so communicated the power of Jennifer in that moment. And to me, I think probably some of the things I'm most proud of are things I've said away like, "Okay, when Colin's driving to meet Jennifer," we had to secure the rights to Screeching Weasel's "I Can See Clearly Now" because I wanted him to be singing in the car. I wanted him to be so psyched and I wanted the audience to see him as this kid who can hear a song that's basically a corny optimistic song be reworked by this ‘90s post-punk band and be joyous and have that play against what's happening with Needy and Chip and their sort of awkward, but very exciting love affair.

It's not in the movie as a performance though it used to be. The band, after they sang "Through the Trees" at the prom, they then do a version of Blondie's "In the Flesh" and they perform it. We ended up cutting that. It'll end up as an extra on the DVD. We didn't really need that performance. We used the song in the credits sequence and I think there's something kind of ironic and funny about having them sing the song and what of course it's playing against. [laughs]




Rotten: You mention "Through the Trees," the anthem of sorts for the town of Devil's Kettle. Who created that song?

Kusama: That was that song that a guy named Ryan Levine who had a band here in L.A. called Test Your Reflex and we'd heard a bunch of songs, a lot of different artists submitted songs to us. It's hard because there was lyrics that had to be incorporated and certain meanings and eventually the song had to become one of those songs that ends up on the radio that you kind of feel like, "Ugh, I remember that song. I wish I didn't."

It had to have a catchiness that you resented. [laughs] No one wants to live on a diet of cotton candy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't taste good the minute you put it in your mouth. I felt like Ryan's song was the perfect balance between that pop confection and something that could have this emotional build like, say in the bar when the girls are first hearing it. I love that moment when Jennifer takes Needy's hand and looks at her like, "I'm just so psyched to be here."

The music is soaring and Jennifer's emotions are soaring and Needy thinks her emotions are soaring too until she looks and realizes Jennifer's focus is totally on the band. I feel like we needed a song to work on a bunch of levels and we were really lucky actually because it's not easy to write a pop song that functions in this way in the movie.




Rotten: Horror is taking a circuitous root this fall back to more teen fare like the Scream era - what do you think about that?

Kusama: It's funny, I feel like we've come to a new place where maybe there's going to be a little bit more openness to a more fun version of this kind of movie. Also, something that's not, I hope, shoving it in anyone's face, but just a little more female. Back to a tradition of appealing female leads who you're rooting for and hope that they make it through.

I'm definitely finding that it's not that I'm interested in girl stories because it's a political decision, it's just I don't see enough of it. I want to see more of it. It's that simple.


Jennifer's Body opens in theaters on September 18.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/interviewsnews.php?id=11737

[platinumblondelife]

so definitely thought this was coming out THIS weekend...

[JamesG]

Jennifer's Body on DVD/Blu-ray 12/29/09



Standard DVD features include:

• Theatrical Widescreen Feature Film
• Audio Commentary with Director Karyn Kusama and Writer Diablo Cody
• Extended Widescreen Version
• Audio Commentary with Director Karyn Kusama





Blu-Ray special features include:

Disc One

• Theatrical Widescreen Feature Film
• Audio Commentary with Director Karyn Kusama and Writer Diablo Cody
• Extended Widescreen Version
• Audio Commentary with Director Karyn Kusama
• Deleted Scenes
• Dead Boys
• Jennifer Check Is Gross
• Needy Confronts Jennifer
• Who's Cindy Crawford?
• Needy Faces The Band
• Ass, Gas or Grass...
• Gag Reel
• Jennifer’s Body: The Dead Pool

• Video Diaries with...
Megan Fox and Johnny Simmons
Amanda Seyfried
Diablo Cody
Dan Dubiecki

• Megan Fox Is HOT
• Megan Fox “Peer Pressure” PSA
• Fox Movie Channel Presents ‘Life After Film School’ With Writer Diablo Cody

Disc Two
• Digital Copy of Jennifer’s Body (Extended Version)

[JamesG]

Excerpt From "If Magazine"
Published 1/9/10


Last fall, JENNIFER’S BODY starring Megan Fox didn’t necessarily light the box office on fire, but Cody feels it will find its audience now that it’s on DVD.

“I want to believe deep down inside that movie will find its audience,” she says.

“At the same time, many of us knew that it wasn’t going to connect which is a terrible thing to say. As much as I love that movie, and I’m incredibly proud of that movie and I will love it forever, I feel it’s very unusual and I don’t think it’s super accessible in a lot of ways.

I don’t think it was a typical, mass appeal popcorn horror movie. I think it was more like an art film. I know some people would laugh at that.”




She also feels the marketing of the film excluded, surprisingly, teenage girls, which is a core target audience for most horror films.

“The marketing was a little messed up,” she admits.

“It was marketed mostly to boys and I think we could have had a large female audience that was ignored. I have faith. I’m on Twitter and I get a lot of feedback from people all day.

The DVD came out and I’ve heard from an avalanche of people saying ‘I didn’t think I would like this movie, and I’ve watched the DVD five times.’ Now I’m thinking, you missed it the first time around and you’re getting your opportunity to enjoy it.”

http://ifmagazine.com/new.asp?article=9119

[JamesG]

Adam Brody on the Agony of Jennifer’s Body
The Movieline Interview || by S.T. VanAirsdale || 09 09 2010


By the time Jennifer's Body came out, it already seemed lost, and I thought it was grossly underrated.

Thank you! I did, too.






Here we are a year later: What the hell happened with that?

I don’t know. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know if anything could have changed anything, or if that was the path it was going down no matter what, but I’m happy people are finding it on cable or wherever they’re finding it.


But I do think it should win a Razzie for Worst Ad Campaign Ever. Seriously. They couldn’t have done a worse poster or trailer if that’s what they f*cking set out to do. I don’t know.

It was such a good opportunity for a cool trailer or poster, and it was like a Goosebumps/R.L. Stine poster.






Ha! That’s what you’d compare it to?

Yeah! It was crazy. And even the idea that it was marketed to… I mean, to me, it was a totally girl-centric movie; it was for girls first and about girls first.

Yet it was marketed to Maxim only. “Megan Fox! This is for you!” I think it scared off its main audience. And I think Megan’s great in the movie.




She is!

She is! And she is a man-eater.
Again, I don’t know. I think there’s a more sisterly point of view to approach it from.






Just the point of view of the writing and the direction alone suggests that.

I thought Karyn [Kusama] did such a good job. I look at it and I’m like, “How could you not like every frame?” It’s so good-looking, and that world she created was so appealing.

I’m instantly drawn in every time I see it. I really like that movie.


http://www.movieline.com/2010/09/adam-brody-on-the-romantics-the-agony-of-jennifers-body-and-the-ecstasy-of-scream-4.php?page=2