Jennifer’s Body fared poorly at the box office upon release, which co-star Amanda Seyfried says is the fault of bad marketing.
Jennifer’s Body should have done far better than it did at the box office, even if it was in the poster alone: a red-hot Megan Fox (already a sex symbol of the Maxim variety) in a short dress sitting on top of a desk that’s hiding a severed body part. But it didn’t work – and it’s the marketing itself that co-star Amanda Seyfried thinks is to blame for the audience not finding Jennifer’s Body.
Speaking with GQ (via EW), Amanda Seyfried said that the reason Jennifer’s Body only made $16 million domestically had to do with how Fox bungled the way to pitch it to audiences. “If the critics criticize anything, it would be the marketing. The marketing sucked. It just did, and we all agree…The marketing team cheapened it, like it was just, you know, a romp. A gory romp. I think they ruined it.”
Seyfried also thinks that the studio’s mishandling of Jennifer’s Body was ultimately a disservice to both director Karyn Kusama and screenwriter Diablo Cody. “Karyn is a fierce advocate of women in storytelling. She is able to enhance the relationships between women on film and TV. She’s able to mine everything she can, and she’s very, very human, and she’s very sensitive…We were expressing a certain angst in a very, very specific comedic way, in a very specific genre.”
While Jennifer’s Body fizzled more than sizzled at the box office, it has at least gone on to be a cult horror-comedy favorite. Fifteen-plus years on, there is even talk of a potential sequel, which seemed like it could have been possible much closer to the release of the original had it actually been a success with moviegoers.
For her “Needy” turn, Amanda Seyfried would win the MTV Movie Award for Best Scared-as-Sh*t Performance, beating out some serious competition in the likes of District 9’s Sharlto Copley, Zombieland’s Jesse Eisenberg, Paranormal Activity’s Katie Featerston, Drag Me to Hell’s Alison Lohman. The movie would also be nominated in the Best WTF Moment category.
Jennifer’s Body may not have worked out well for Amanda Seyfried at the time, but Joni’s voice is. The actress recently appeared on The Tonight Show and took time to show off her skills both vocally and on the dulcimer, doing an absolutely stellar rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “California”…With Cameron Crowe reportedly moving forward on his biopic and Meryl Streep set to play the older Mitchell, if he casts Seyfried as the younger version, we’d get the only Mamma Mia! reunion we really need.
Are you a fan of Jennifer’s Body? What do you think made it eventually find its audience?
