Sarah Michelle Gellar

It’s that spooky time of year when movies with even the mildest of scares have a great chance of breaking out at the box office. Would Sarah Michelle Gellar be able to find such success in a remake of a Japanese horror film?

The Grudge

The Grudge, a film that was remade by its own director, Takashi Shimizu, was indeed able to find success during the Halloween season. The PG-13 rated scare-fest took in an impressive $15.2 million on Friday, well ahead of what the majority of box office analysts were predicting for the weekend. With a similar creepy tone and style to another Japanese remake of a couple of years ago, The Ring, we’re likely to see very similar box office behavior. The Ring scored a 3.1 Friday-to-Sunday multiplier; however, I have to knock The Grudge down just a couple of notches due to the fact that its word-of-mouth is nowhere near as stellar as that of the Naomi Watts film. Additionally, the high Friday number is a pretty strong indication that the audience rushed to see it. Give The Grudge a 2.7 multiplier for the weekend and a three-day number of $41 million. Sony and Sam Raimi are going to be thrilled with this performance.