In a move that can only be seen as “Alright, I guess, sure, why not?” Diablo Cody is attached to adapt the book series, Sweet Valley High for the big screen. Growing up as a manly man in Michigan, I never had the pleasure of reading any of these books, but supposedly Cody has quite the attachment to them and credits them with influencing her while growing up.
Before all you Sweet Valley High fans get all in a tizzy (I know the audience base of Screen Rant pretty well), she’s not going at this alone. Also attached to the project are Mason Novick (producer of Juno, Jennifer’s Body, 500 Days of Summer) and Marc Platt (producer of Legally Blonde, Wanted, A Couple of Dicks).I think with that mix of talent, they should be able to keep Ms. Cody (I’m a gentleman) under control.
Recently, the trio of the bee-o (I’m making up my own Diablo-ism’s) have been shopping Sweet Valley High around and word has it that it caused a bidding war between Fox 2000 (27 Dresses) and Mandate Pictures (Haha “man date.”)
This new comes a week after Cody’s movie, Jennifer’s Body, garnered $6.8 million it’s opening weekend. While Jennifer’s Body wouldn’t be considered critically acclaimed (43% Rotten Tomatoes), it did spark an interesting article from Screen Rant’s own Vic Holtreman, regarding a gender split in regards to the femme horror film. Vic found, through diligent research, (He’s good like that) that female critics were being more favorable towards the movie than male critics and that the reason is not because they’re part of Team Cody, but because there were aspects of the movie that, as men, “we just didn’t understand.”
Those same critics stated that Cody has a knack for writing extremely empowered female characters and relationships between women – the fact that they’re getting all philosophical on a really bad horror movie has to mean something. I’m not a fan of Cody’s, so my view is biased, but after reading that article and then hearing about this news, I’m starting to see a trend taking form.
If such things are true, it looks like we’re going to be getting quite a great Sweet Valley High film franchise on our hands that girls of all ages will love. If not, we’re going to be stuck with one Sweet Valley High film and multiple straight to DVD movies (See: Bring It On) that have quotes like this, “That ain’t no Etch-A-Sketch. This is one doodle that can’t be un-did, Homeskillet.”
Yay.
Source: Heatvision [via: Slashfilm]
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This is pretty much Diablo’s (style). She’s the Quentin Tarrantino of female empowerment,,,
Give a girl some awards and this is what happens,,,
Her films do nothing for me,,,
I liked Juno. I have not seen Jennifer’s Body (Megan Fox makes me puke).
I remember a Sweet Valley High tv series from when I was a kid; I didn’t watch it much, though.
(shrug) I’ll watch the trailer and read reviews before I decide I want to see it, if it even gets made.
I liked Juno. Very good movie and good script.
But I have to ask… why is this news covered on ScreenRant? It’s not the normal demographic, not even on the fringes. What purpose does this announcement serve for the site? Just an excuse to bash Cody (as half the article does) or chick-flicks?
Point.
Less.
Oh man please nobody compare Diablo Cody to Quentin Tarantino! I get what your saying, but don’t do her the honor of matching their names in a sentence.
@jordi
Normal demographic? It was marketed as a horror movie (we cover those), it has Megan Fox (no explanation required), and believe it or not, women do read this site – I don’t have some sort of female-blocking mechanism in place here.
Vic
@Vic
I have absolutely no problems with ScreenRant covering Jennifer’s Body (and hey, I’m not egotistical enough to believe my opinion somehow counts here) but Sweet Valley High? That is most definitely not the normal SR movie demographic is it?
This article is about SVH not JB. The only reason I can see for this being here is to mention Cody and how much the writer doesn’t like her and the sarky little quotes from Juno at the bottom reinforce that impression.
For a site that allows no profanity or personal attacks in its posts this article seems (hypocritically) like one big personal attack. I could understand if she’d just directed Deadpool as a musical rom-com and was pitching to re-envisage JLA as a Dogme piece but she didn’t/hasn’t/won’t (unless the musical numbers are good
).
Pieces like this just reinforce/regurgitate unnecessary crap. Just my opinion for what its worth (about $0.0001 in today’s exchange rates).
@jordi
Sorry, I thought I was replying to a JB article. I just read the article above and I don’t see anything that is a personal attack or makes us hypocrites (so nice of you to say that).
Vic