Ah Hollywood. She works in funny ways. As we’ve discussed, everyone and their ailing Tinseltown mothers is rooting for “Juno,” nay is desperate for the film to become this years “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Why? Because all the mid-sized/Indiewood studio Oscar-bait studio pictures, “Rendition,” “Reservation Road,” “Things We Lost In The Fire,” “Lions For Lambs” have all so far tanked or done mediocre boxoffice business so far (“American Gangster” which is a major studio picture has been the first real studio/Oscar contender money maker of the fall season so far). The Fall Season has been owned by garbage like Saw 4,” “The Game Plan” and “Bee Movie.” But as we all know these movies don’t win awards.
We digress, Hollywood wants a feel-good underdog so they’ve already anointed “Juno” to be this darkhorse, thereby making its writer, the ex-Minneapolis stripper/blogger Diablo Cody, the hot new shit even though Juno hasn’t been seen by anyone other than audiences and critics at the Toronto Film Festival and the Rome Film festival (where the little film that could nabbed the top prize; in Toronto it grabbed the runner-up People’s Choice Award, but let’s face it that’s 5% of the movie going public at best) and doesn’t come out in limited release until December 5 (Cody’s stripper blog, “The Pussy Ranch,” is what got her noticed initially, the blog got her the book deal for her 2006 memoir “Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper” and then Hollywood came a knockin’, hence “Juno“)
Apparently everyone in Hollywood has already read the script though and Cody’s (née Brook Busey-Hunt) phone is ringing off the hook. Jason Reitman, the director of “Juno” (see? even the writer is getting more attention than the director, how often does that happen?) compared reading her work to reading Quentin Tarantino’s work for the first time and was blown away. He had plans to actually write his own follow-up to “Thank You For Smoking” (a film he had adapted himself), until he read Cody’s “Juno” script and immediately abandoned his own plans to pursue her work. “When I think of the response to Diablo and her screenplay,” Reitman told EW in their Cody feature, ”the only person I can equate it to in recent history is Tarantino, that kind of overwhelming excitement about a fresh new voice.”
Cody is so highly in demand, everyone wants a piece of her. Especially the ladies. Apparently, good women roles are at such a premium, that tons of Hollywood starlets are becoming bff with Cody in hopes she’ll write them a juicy part (Eliza Dushku is apparently one of the L.A. trampstampers that has already “taken a meeting” with Cody, which is deep, deep code for “had lunch”).
What the hell is “Juno” about? As we mentioned in our fall preview, it’s a black comedy about a teenager that accidentally becomes pregnant and then decides to have the baby so she can give it to loving and needing foster parents (the entire soundtrack details which feature a lot of Ex-Moldy Peaches singer Kimya Dawson are here). The trailer is admittedly very amusing and beguiling (and yes, the star Ellen Page is already garnering Best Actress Oscar buzz as well).
‘I think teenage girls deserve a better shake in cinema,” Cody told EW, pointing to “My So-Called Life”s Angela Chase as the rare, decent teenage female character. ”God knows people might say the dialogue in ‘Juno’ is too stylized, but I’ve met so many hyperarticulate teenage girls who are not just shallow and image-obsessed.”
Stylizied or not, Hollywood is loving her and she has a shit-ton of projects in the works. ”I never get to meet with male actors because they don’t need me,” she said. ”But actresses? Constantly.”
In The Works For Diablo
Cody has already written the female nerd-in-high school response to “Superbad,” called “Girly Style” (“God, I would slit my wrists to meet Judd Apatow,” she said. She wrote it immediately after seeing the Apatow summer comedy), another script titled, “Time and a Half;” a satire about the cult of modern-day hipsters; and a “horror movie about a girl who eats boys” (”It’s ‘Juno’ but with cannibalism and evisceration”), plus she wants to someday direct and it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
Oh yeah and this guy Steven Spielberg has tapped her to write the pilot episode of “The United States of Tara” – a comedy about a woman with multiple personalities (Toni Collete is attached to star). To boot, she’s befriended two of Hollywood’s hot female screenwriters Dana Fox, who’s currently writing Vince Vaughn’s next comedy, and Lorene Scafaria, whose debut script, “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” is being shot as we speak.
Hard life. One things for certain. If this buzz persists, “Juno” will at least have a Best Screenwriting Nomination in the bag come February. Get used to her now cause you’re going to see and hear from her everywhere. Remember when QT was ubiquitous back in the day and you just wanted to sandwich your fist down his face? Yeah, like that. Expect it all to go to her head in about, 5, 4, 3…
Here Comes Jennifer’s Body
*Update*: Not 24 hours after writing this piece it turns out Reitman and Cody will team up again. Whatever original script Reitman was planning to write after ‘Smoking’ will have to wait; apparently he’s smitten with his new screenwriting muse. The aforementioned horror comedy has got a name and it’s now called, “Jennifer’s Body.” The film is about a demonically possessed cheerleader who 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. Megan Fox, the hottie from “Transformers” is already attached to star. Well, that was fast.