The good folks over at scored an interview with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert about the status of GRUDGE 2. Here’s a taste:
Sam and myself sat with the producer Taka [Ichise], the writer Stephen Susco, the director Shimizu-san, our partners from Ghost House Pictures, and probably 10 of us in a room like seven and eight hours a day going over stuff. So it was kind of a creative free for all for all of us. The second one is much more of a stand alone movie than [the first one] was. In fact, there are very few elements in the second one, at least where it is right now, that are derivative of previous works. [The first one] kind of borrowed from all of the previous movies that have gone before. [And this one is going in a new direction] and that’s one of the reasons that the director is interested. He’s kind of told the story so many times that he didn’t want to go back and revisit what he’s done, and it was only that [he and] the writer had some new ideas that they wanted to explore in terms of The Grudge [that brought them back].
New direction, eh? Considering how many iterations of the flick have already been done, that’s a little like trying to take James Bond in a new direction, but hey, good luck to them!
As to whether or not the lithe and lovely Ms. Gellar will return, Tapert mostly dodged the question, but said it was possible in AKA brief cameo to be used in trailers.