None of the horror genre’s marketable faces are ever allowed to live out the rest of their days in the retirement home for slashers, serial killers and undead ghouls, and any property that’s raked in a decent amount of money will eventually find itself rebooted, remade or reinvented in perpetuity until the well runs dry.
That more than applies to the extended Ring franchise, which is currently on hiatus after 2017’s Rings was panned by critics. It may have earned $83 million at the box office on a $25 million budget, but an 8% score on Rotten Tomatoes is hardly the glowing endorsement that guarantees further outings.
So far, there’ve been three American movies in addition to the 1998 Japanese original that went on to spawn six sequels in two separate timelines as well as two unrelated TV shows, a crossover with The Grudge and a South Korean remake. The creative tank has been running on empty for a long time now, but insider Daniel Richtman claims that Paramount want star Naomi Watts to return as Rachel Keller for future projects set in the supernatural universe.
The tipster doesn’t offer up any additional information, though, and as things stand, there are no Ring-related films or TV shows in the works, despite The Grudge director Nicolas Pesce expressing his interest in helming a crossover. The idea of an American remake of an American remake of a Japanese movie doing a versus film opposite another American remake of a Japanese movie is hardly the most exciting prospect, but if Richtman’s intel eventually pans out, then there are certainly worse ideas to reinvigorate the property than bringing back an established and talented actress like Watts without having to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
