Searchlight, have touted the film's apparent anti-abortion message, perhaps for fear of upsetting pro-choice liberals also flocking to it, it's clear that that is why film is reaching rapturuous conservative audiences.

"Much of the film's popularity can be traced to audience demand in cities most Hollywood executives see only from their private jets," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "The word of mouth has been electric," said Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com.

Costing less than $15m to make, it should pass the $100m mark comfortably, especially after today's nominations for Best Picture, Actress, Director and Screenplay.

Oddly, the person who seems to be most puzzled that Juno has been espoused by conservative Middle America is 29-year-old Diablo Cody, Hollywood's new screenwriting

darling, who is really called Brook Busey-Hunt but decided to keep the nom de plume she used when blogging about her life as stripper.

"I've had to field so many questions about the sinister pro-life agenda of Juno," she says. In fact, Juno's decision not to go through with the abortion was simply a narrative device so that Juno - and the audience - would get to meet the adoptive parents.

"Juno never moralises about the choice she makes. I'm pro-choice, so for me it was very important that the movie did not seem to have any kind of anti-choice agenda."

Don't tell Middle America. Nor mention that Cody's next film, a horror movie about a girl who eats boys. "It's Juno but with cannibalism and evisceration," says Cody.