As Diablo Cody prepares to resurrect Megan Fox‘s teen succubus one more time, she’s adding a more human element to the demonic role.
While discussing the “imminent” sequel Jennifer’s Body 2, the Oscar-winning writer explained that the followup will “explore even more about why Jennifer is sympathetic and what she’s been through” after she was sacrificed in a satanic ritual in the 2009 horror comedy, which turned her into the boy-eating entity.
“Jennifer is a sympathetic character for me, before and after the transformation,” she explained on the Petticoat Revolution podcast. “I mean, she is very isolated, she’s very lonely, she’s very insecure. Everybody remembers Jennifer when she’s like, ‘I am a god,’ or when she’s at her most radiant and at her most powerful. But people forget about these moments in the movie where she’s like a shell of herself, she’s just exsanguinated almost. And to me, Megan played both of those sides of Jennifer so well.”
Cody continued, “And one fun thing—I can’t talk about it too much—but you know we’re doing a sequel to this movie, like imminently, and I felt like in the new movie, I was able to explore even more about why Jennifer is sympathetic and what she’s been through. And there is absolutely, to me, a loneliness and a poignancy to that character that people don’t always recognize.”
Deadline previously confirmed that Cody is developing the sequel for 20th Century Studios, with the movie’s original director Karyn Kusama teasing that she’s “very excited to hear what comes” of the follow-up, for which Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried have both expressed interest in returning.
“I know some of the bones of it, so I’m not going to give anything away, but it sounds fun and crazy like the first film,” Kusama told Deadline last year. “And I have no doubt that Diablo will do something absolutely incredible with it.”
In Jennifer’s Body, Needy (Seyfried) is BFFs with the titular mean girl played by Fox, whose body becomes possessed by a succubus with a taste for teen boys after a botched sacrifice by a devil-worshipping boy band (led by Adam Brody).