A few days ago, word arrived that Andrea Riseborough was the main name that Sam Raimi's Ghost House Productions and Sony wanted to star in the latest reboot of the Grudge films. She's now joined the movie, and Demián Bichir has taken one of the other lead roles.
Nicolas Pesce is directing this new take on the concept, having written a script that will see Riseborough as a police detective and single mother who confronts the supernatural threat.
The Grudge, like the curse that title refers to, keeps on being reborn. Beginning with short films and two Japanese TV movies in 2000, director Takashi Shimizu spun his Ju-On tale into two theatrical Japanese features in 2003. He then helmed a Hollywood remake of the first starring Sarah Michelle Gellar in 2004, and stayed around for 2006's The Grudge 2, which again featured Gellar but was a stand-alone movie not based on Ju-On 2.
Then in 2009, there were two non-Shimizu Japanese entires in Old Lady in White and Girl in Black (released together as Ju-On: White Ghost/Black Ghost), plus the American DTV Grudge 3, directed by Toby Wilkins, starring Shawnee Smith from the Saw films and Marina "Counsellor Deanna Troi" Sirtis. Back in Japan, Ochiai Masayuki wrote and directed The Beginning Of The End in 2014. And most recently we've had Kōji Shiraishi's Sadako Vs. Kayako, pitting Ju-On's principal chalk-faced, lank-haired female ghoul against that of the equally unwieldy Ring franchise.
You might imagine there's not much left to explore, but Raimi in particular sees it otherwise. "We are so excited about this new adaptation," Raimi said in a statement. "We went back to the original source material to deliver a relentless supernatural thrill ride that explores the horrors of American suburbia."
Pesce is scheduled to start the cameras rolling in May.
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