NEWS FROM GRUDGE SET
FANGORIAs Japanese correspondent Norman England has been spending a lot of time on the set of THE GRUDGE, Takashi Shimizus English-language remake of his JU-ON films thats produced by returning Taka Ichise along with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert. He just sent in an initial report that begins with a bit of casting news. Ted Raimi is in this too, he reveals; the actor joins an ensemble that includes Sarah Michelle (BUFFY) Gellar, Jason Behr, Clea (CARNIVALE) DuVall, KaDee Strickland, Bill Pullman and the Japanese films ghosts, Takako Fuji and Yuya Ozeki. The thing about this film is that its very ensemble, England adds. Even though Sarah Michelle Gellar is the lead, shes not in it as much as you would think. But this is in keeping with JU-ON; all the films are like that.
From what Ive seen, there is a really good mixing of Japanese and Western staff, he continues. There are a lot of bilingual people on the crew, Japanese who speak English as well as Americans who speak Japanese. Id label it a best of both worlds production.
The sets look really impressive, too; they rebuilt the haunted house inside Tohos new Studio 7. Its totally realistic. The crew is really busting their butts on this film and from the few shots Ive seen, I have to say that its looking good.
England has already interviewed busy genre producer Ichise for us, and reveals, In April hes shooting the first of six new horror films. This one is being directed by Masayuki Ochiai, who did THE HYPNOTIST. I also talked with Hideo [RINGU] Nakata two weeks ago, and he said that he too is doing one for Ichise. I found out from Taka that unfortunately, Nakata’s [planned U.S. feature debut] TRUE BELIEVER was canned.
Look for Englands extensive and exclusive coverage of THE GRUDGE (including the only on-set interview with Gellar) in Fangos pages this fall, and see issue #231 (on sale March 18) for his coverage of the JU-ON movies.
Courtesy of Fangoria
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