TheGrudge2 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

With only two feature films (The Grudge and The Grudge 2) under his belt (both of which are adaptations of someone else's screenplay), writer Stephen Susco is about the make a leap into the director's chair. Hey, anything to keep the guy's mind off of The Grudge 3 is just fine by me.

Mr. Susco will be writing and directing a film called White for the folks at Rogue, aka Focus, aka Universal Pictures. Based on the novella by Tim Lebbon, White is (according to Variety) "an apocalyptic tale centering on a band of people trapped in a blizzard and systematically picked off by mysterious phantoms." So ... no freaky Asian kids who hang around in attics? Cool.

Also on Susco's plate are the indie horror Zero Dark Thirty and a new spec script he just unloaded called Sanctuary.

Welcome to yet another edition of Cinematical's podcast, Coming Distractions. As ever, I'm your host, Cinematical editor-in-chief James Rocchi, and this week's co-host is Cinematical's Scott Weinberg. This week, we're talking about everything from Google's acquisition of YouTube to the upcoming Oscar season -- as well as DVD picks and Pans, how it feels to be out of the Movie stream for a week while traveling and Todd Fields' Little Children. You can download the whole podcast right here, and, as ever, let us know what you'd like more of -- or anything you think we should be talking about!

(Music: "Overdose," Dumb)

Well, it looks like a Friday the 13th in the middle of October put folks in the mood for a good scare, as The Grudge 2 (which our own Jeffrey M. Anderson felt was "frigid and lifeless") knocked Martin Scorsese out of the top spot at the box office this weekend. Thanks, in part, to Sony's decision not to screen the sequel for critics beforehand, audiences shelled out $22 million and helped provide the studio with their 12th number one film this year. However, those numbers came nowhere near the $39 million The Grudge took home in its opening weekend back in 2004. Let's see if the late critical lashing hurts the film as it enters its second week.

Speaking of films in their second week, The Departed put up a good fight but ultimately failed to repeat its number one performance of last week, settling for a second place finish and $18.7 million. We're not sure whether he's Man of the Year, but we definitely know he's not Man of the Week, as Robin Williams' new political comedy opened in third place with $12.5 million. Hmm, that can't be -- were all the ballots counted? The animated comedy Open Season continued to do well in its fourth week, dropping one spot to fourth and scoring $11 million. Rounding out the top five was last week's number two film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning ($7.75 million). Seems the only thing scary about that flick is its 58% drop from week one to week two.

Full numbers after the jump.

If we've learned anything from the collected works of master thespianette Sarah Michelle Gellar, it's this: Gellar + Remake = Cinematic Bliss. Between her remakes and her horror films, Ms. Gellar has graced the universe with entertainments as dazzling as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2, The Grudge and the impending Grudge 2. (Hell, even Buffy was a remake, if you want to be anal about it.) She also has The Return coming soon, a project that looks as generic as its title.

Convinced she still has a whole lot left to offer the expansive genre of Horror/Remake, Ms. Gellar has signed on to star in Addicted, a "psychological thriller" (which nowadays means "a PG-13 horror film") that's based on a 2002 Korean film called Jungdok. (Screenplay by the man who penned Queen of the Damned.) The plot centers on a woman whose husband and brother-in-law go comatose, but when the latter guy wakes up ... he's convinced that HE is her husband! Dun-dun-dunnnnnnnn!

Not even remotely surprising is that fact that Addicted will come from Vertigo Entertainment, the outfit that jammed American actors and English dialogue in Grudge, Grudge 2, Ring and Ring 2. Because the production house would probably implode from the effort expended on writing an original screenplay. (Don't believe me? Vertigo Remake Inc. also did Dark Water, The Lake House and The Departed, plus they're also working on the remakes of The Eye, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Oldboy, Ikiru, The Entity and Creepshow.)

Not a whole lot of juicy new happenings have fallen out of the horror machine recently, so (since I'm bored and they pay me to blog) I thought I'd just share a couple of small-sized exclusives from the Bloody-Disgusting boys.

1. Brace yourselves: Sony's slapping together another direct-to-video semi-sequel. This time it's The Craft that gets the unwanted little sister. Yep, that flick about teenage witches who do very little with their evil powers besides torture boys, color their hair and fight with one another. No word yet on whether Fairuza Balk will be returning to play "that creepy witch girl who lives down the street," but I'm guessing she might.

2. More word from Sonyville's Horror Department: Apparently there's all sorts of problems with the mildly-anticipated The Grudge 2, and also big buckets of reshoots being done on The Pang Brothers' The Messengers as well. (Y'know, between Ghost House (The Grudge, Boogeyman) and Dark Castle (Gothika, House of Wax) I don't think they've put together one completely solid horror movie yet. What gives?)

3. Speaking of Dark Castle movies that probably aren't any good, WB rescheduled The Reaping's release for next March. Oh, and (as mentioned earlier) both Lucky McKee's The Woods and John Gulager's Feast have earned DVD dates, cover art and copious supplemental doo-hickeys.

Thanks to BD.com and Dread Central for the terrifiying tidbits.