Amber was also on Buffy as Dawn's friend Janice

RavenU | January 25, 17:37 CET

First she's scared to death by Samara in The Ring, now she's gonna be scared to death by Kayako in The Grudge 2. If Sarah is the scream queen, then Amber is the Japanese remake scream queen.

Djungelurban | January 25, 18:02 CET

Ah, that sounds interesting. I really enjoyed Amber's acting on 'Joan of Arcadia'. Such a shame it was cancelled just when it developed a great plot.

Madhatter | January 25, 18:09 CET

Speaking of Joan of Arcadia, is there any chance that season 2 is ever going to make it to DVD?

MissKittysMom | January 25, 18:24 CET

I really hated The Grudge. But I'm glad to see Amber score a feature. A big feature at that!
Though I really liked the pilot, I was never able to see JoA. (I only have 1 TV, 1 VHS and 1 DVD player. No Tivo.)
It was sad to see a show burn so brightly in the beginning, then dim a bit and then see the network just flat out drop it.

AmazonGirl | January 25, 18:39 CET

No word as of yet on the season 2 DVD release of JoA, MissKittysMom. But, I think the chances are good it will happen. I think the main reason the show dropped ratings during the second season was because it followed the same pattern as the first. If they had brought in Joan's antagonist much earlier in the season, I believe the show would've held its own. Oh, well....

Understand Amber Tamblyn wanted to try her chops on films anyway so, hopefully, Grudge 2 will do as well at the box office as the first and we'll see more of Amber.

Madhatter | January 25, 21:37 CET

Say it again, my friends: bomb. Okay, not a total one -- this will do better than the likes of The Fog and When A Stranger Calls. But don't expect this sequel to approach the original's gross. It'll probably top out at $60 million.

Does my hatred of The Grudge know no bounds? Next week, you're in for a hilarious episode where I kidnap Takashi Shimizu and force him to say "no" to Sony.

Chains, rabid dogs, and a deadly tube of vasoline ensue.

The Dark Shape | January 25, 23:25 CET

I dunno, I think it's kinda funny that the director has done like seven or eight movies, and only one of them wasn't The Grudge or some variation on it. It was ridiculously inconsistent at times (anything regarding logic goes out the window), but as a cheap horror movie I thought it was kinda slick. I've been hoping to see the more serialized original version of the film but I don't wanna have to shell out the money to actually OWN it.

orangewaxlion | January 26, 00:44 CET

$60 million against a $10 million production budget... Whether you hate the film or not (and if it's a reference to the sequel it seems somewhat premature since it hasn't even been made yet), isn't equating that prediction to a "bomb" something of a stretch?

alien lanes | January 26, 01:23 CET

I think a lot of the movie industry would sell their soul to make a $60 million "bomb".

garda39 | January 26, 01:29 CET

Indeed. I'm sure we've been over this on Whedonesque before - with a $10m production budget, $60m at the box office + DVD sales + rentals == profit.

gossi | January 26, 02:12 CET

I think they wouldn't. A bomb's a bomb... which brings me to the point I should've used the word "disappointment" instead. The Grudge grossed $110 million, a good chunk of it because of The Ring's success. If The Ring Two topped out at $76 million, I can't see The Grudge 2 beating the mark, especially when the first film had terrible DVD sales that indicated some fairly bad word-of-mouth.

The Dark Shape | January 26, 03:25 CET

I am clearly biased because I liked the film, and I am certainly no expert about these things, but did 'The Grudge' really have "terrible DVD sales"?

The only figures I have seen are on a website called 'Lee's Movie Info' and I have no idea how accurate they are. However, for the record, they indicate the film was ranked No.23 for mid-year 2005 with a gross of $48 million (apparently DVD sales only, not including rental) following a 1 February 2005 release. While I am happy to assume this is not an exceptional figure by any means, I am not convinced it can be described as "terrible".

Just as a matter of interest, the worldwide box office gross for 'The Ring 2' was over $161 million, which I would imagine is an impressive sum by any standards.

(Edited to correct an annoying typo.)

[ edited by dashboardprophet on 2006-01-26 01:44 ]

alien lanes | January 26, 03:42 CET

The Ring 2 has pretty much been seen as a commercial and critical failure by the industry. It came in way below expectations.

eddy | January 26, 05:30 CET

It seems to me to be a strange old world when a film that (I would guess) had a production budget of no more than $50-60 million is deemed to be a commercial failure with a $161 million box office gross, irrespective of the greater revenue generated by the first film (which, let's be realistic, it was never likely to match). As to its critical merits, that is an entirely different matter. I liked it but I am aware that I am very much in the minority.

Sometimes I think that if everyone had more realistic commercial goals and if the insane amounts of money allegedly spent and generated by the film industry were not constantly quoted as if it were nothing more than a bit of loose change we would actually end up with films of far greater (or at least more consistent) artistic value.

[ edited by dashboardprophet on 2006-01-26 04:00 ]

alien lanes | January 26, 05:53 CET

I'm with dashboardprophet on this one. I suspect the producers and everyone else involved are well aware that this sequel won't match the box office take of the first film. However, it doesn't have to in order to make a heck of a lot of money. With a $10 million budget, it can make significantly less and it will still make tens of millions of dollars. As to the DVD sales, they might not have been up there with the top few films of the year, but they were perfectly decent. And again; extremely profitable. I'm not a big fan of horror films, but from a business perspective I feel pretty confident when I say that TG2 is going to make lots of money for all involved. With a production budget as low as it is, they really can't go wrong. Hollywood studios wouldn't be having the problems they seem to be having if they'd learn from this model.

Impossible | January 26, 06:08 CET

The DVD rental figures for The Grudge were sitting at 35.7 million according to DVD Exclusive Online in June 2005. Likewise, The Ring 2 had made 24.77 million in rentals upto Nov. 20, 2005. Tracking down DVD revenue figures is pretty difficult. The studios have done a great job of keeping them secret.

I find it interesting how people define bombs these days. If you look at just the numbers alone, none of these films will make Star Wars like numbers. Horror films seem to have a pre-built in audience. The average box office numbers for mainstream horror films sit at about 37 million. If The Grudge 2 makes sixty percent of the original,(definition of sequel success) it would still out-perform the horror average by quite a lot.

Anne 5_by_5 | January 26, 20:25 CET