According to Variety, Takashi Shimizu, director of both the Japanese original and the U.S. remake of The Grudge, is back in Tokyo to start preparation for his next feature.

After a trip to the U.S. for the The Grudge premiere, he was still marveling over the pic's strong opening-weekend results.

"Honestly, we never thought this possible," Shimizu says of the B.O. numbers. "This corresponds to our first-week projections within the first three days."

He's already prepping his next feature for the J-Horror Theater series for Lions Gate and producer Taka Ichise, one of the producers of The Grudge.

Ichise discovered and produced Shimizu's original The Grudge and The Grudge 2, as well as Japanese horror hits The Ring, The Ring Two and Dark Water, all remade or in the works as remakes in the U.S.

The Death, Shimizu isn't ready to go into detail about the pic, tentatively titled "The Death," but he says shooting will start in March in Japan and in Japanese.