Takashi Shimizu's The Grudge 2 took the top spot at the weekend box office with an estimated total of $22 million.  The film is a sequel to Shimizu's The Grudge (2003), itself a remake of the director's Japanese film Ju-On. 

Made for less than $10 million, The Grudge, which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, earned $39.1 million during its opening weekend on its way to a worldwide total of $184 million.  The Grudge 2, which stars Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Arcadia) and cost just under $20 million, won't match the lofty profit margin of its predecessor, but Sony will undoubtedly turn a solid profit on the film and has already embarked on production planning for The Grudge 3. 

Sony's research on the audience for the opening weekend of The Grudge 2 is quite interesting -- remarkably for a horror film, 52% of moviegoers were female.  The age demographic is much more typical of the genre with 54% of the audience under 21.

The age and gender demographics for The Grudge 2 indicate that the film's audience should have considerable interest in books published by Dark Horse including a manga adaptation of the original Japanese movie, Ju-On: Video Side by Miki Rinno; and Ju-On Volume 2, a manga version of the sequel written by Takashi Shimizu; as well as in Kei Ohishi's novelization, Ju-On: A Novel from DH Publishing.  Retailers might also want to tap into the increasing interest in Japanese horror films with items such as the forthcoming DVD box set of films based on the horror manga of Hideshi Hino (see 'Hideshi Hino's Theater of Horror').

The Departed, a remake of the Hong Kong blockbuster Infernal Affairs, dropped only 30% in its second weekend and came in a strong second with an estimated $18.7 million, which means that the top two spots on this weekend's chart are occupied by films that had their origins in Asia.

The computer-animated Open Season also dropped only about 30% (in its third weekend) and came in fifth, while The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning plummeted 58% in its second weekend, the kind of drop that is all too typical for contemporary horror films. 

Overall the weekend represented another good showing for Hollywood with the top twenty films grossing 35% more than the top 20 was able to bring in during the same weekend in 2005.