The Ring (2002) – What Happened to This Horror Movie?
Remake versus original – always a popular topic in the horror community. While the original usually wins the debate, there are some movies most of us can agree surpass its predecessor. David Cronenberg’s The Fly, John Carpenter’s The Thing, perhaps being the easiest examples to cite. But once we get into the weeds, we find ourselves mulling trickier titles. Dawn of the Dead? Let Me In? Halloween? Okay, just kidding with that one. It gets even trickier when you delve into the talent pool from overseas. There are several ominous foreign-language offerings that have been remade in the states with some pretty solid results. The best example that comes to mind is Gore Verbinski’s The Ring, a remake of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, both adaptations of the book Ring by Koji Suzuki. The Ring was the film that ignited the brief but powerful “J-horror” phase in Hollywood in the mid-2000s, when it seemed like every other genre offering was a remake of an already-popular Japanese thriller; Lord knows we had our share of creepy, long-haired ghost girls flooding the marketplace. The Ring is certainly the granddaddy of the “J-horror” genre, and a perfect example of a movie that enjoys its share of the remake-versus-original debate. Some people think the original Ringu is one of the scariest movies of all time, and that the remake is just the glossy, Hollywood-ized version, while others see the Verbinski film as a masterclass in studio horror, that rare PG-13 movie that doesn’t pull its punches and pins the audience down into their seats. Whichever side of the debate you’re on, you better wash that stringy hair of yours and plug in your VCR, because we’re going all the way down the well to find out what happened to The Ring.
Hideo Nakata’s Ringu opened in Japan in 1998 and was an immediate hit, becoming the highest grossing horror film in the country’s history at the time. It quickly became an international success too, and its reputation of being a truly scary supernatural thriller eventually caught Hollywood’s attention. An executive at Dreamworks Pictures caught a glimpse at the film and immediately called up his superiors, declaring it the scariest movie he’d ever seen in his life. Dreamworks bigwigs Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, a married producing duo, were sent a VHS copy of the film, quite fittingly, and watched it while both frightened and mesmerized, to use their words. As soon as it was over, the duo decided they had to remake the film and paid $1 million for the rights. Whether or not they really had to remake it is debatable, but once the decision was made the remake train was out of the station.
To direct, Parkes and MacDonald turned to a director whose only two features were Dreamworks movies: former commercial and music video director Gore Verbinski had helmed one of the studio’s first releases, Mousehunt, and followed that up with the Brad Pitt-Julia Roberts comedy The Mexican. While neither was a big box office hit, the studio clearly trusted the director with a film that was going to be heavy on eerie atmosphere and visual storytelling. Verbinski also watched Ringu on a VHS tape, one he claims was seven generations removed from the original, which only added to the mystique of the experience. Though hesitant to remake a popular film for obvious reasons, Verbinksi agreed to helm the feature, which was to go into production in 2001.
The lead in The Ring, Rachel Keller, is a workaholic single mom and a reporter for a Seattle newspaper – she often seems much more interested in the stories she chases down than raising her own son, who is remarkably self-sufficient. A challenging role because she’s not exactly your typical sympathetic horror damsel in distress, Rachel would present a unique opportunity for whoever would be portraying her. Right off the bat, Verbinski wanted to go with a relative unknown, reasoning that if the character were played by a recognizable actress audiences would have preconceived notions about her. But Hollywood being what it is, the call went out to actresses who had established track records. The most prominent name was Jennifer Connelly, then coming off movies like Requiem for a Dream and A Beautiful Mind. But Connelly had concerns about the script, she reportedly didn’t like Rachel’s shaky parenting skills, and apparently she wanted rewrites to make the character more sympathetic. The studio wasn’t on board and moved on. Supposedly, Gwyneth Paltrow was considered at one point, as was a pre-Underworld Kate Beckinsale. But then an intriguing name appeared on their radars from out of nowhere.
A little known Australian actress named Naomi Watts was generating heat for her turn in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, which had not yet been released at that point. Producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald screened the movie, as did Verbinski, and they were all suitably blown away by the actress’s hypnotic turn in the soon-to-be-classic Lynch flick. Verbinksi flew to London to meet with Watts and discuss The Ring, which Watts responded to. She later admitted the fact Rachel is a flawed, self-obsessed person appealed to her, and ultimately agreed to star in the picture.
To play her ex and friend Noah, Verbinksi turned not to Australia but New Zealand. Martin Henderson was primarily known as a soap opera actor, but now was the co-lead in a studio horror film, Dreamworks was clearly banking on the story and Verbinski’s talented eye to anchor The Ring as opposed to A-listers in front of the camera. Watts and Henderson apparently had a lot of fun behind-the-scenes playing up the rivalry that exists between folks from Australia and New Zealand, and you have to admit they both deliver convincing American accents throughout the picture.
Though there was going to be one fairly recognizable face in the film, he ended up on the cutting room floor. Chris Cooper, known at the time for turns in movies like American Beauty and October Sky, was featured in a subplot that bookended The Ring; he was playing a murderer who the Watts character meets at the beginning of the film for an interview. At the end, when she realizes she has to screen the cursed tape to someone in order to save her son, she chooses the Cooper character to show it to. But according to Cooper, the character was excised from the film because audiences were confused as to why he didn’t appear in the film more. Verbinski’s take, however, is that the ambiguous nature of the film’s ultimate ending – where you don’t know who Rachel is going to show the tape to in order to lift the curse from her son – worked better, leaving the audience with a slightly open-door ending.
Perhaps the Chris Cooper material never would have been filmed in the first place if the production had a finished script in hand when cameras began to roll. But according to Verbinski, “The Ring – like so many Hollywood movies before it – commenced filming before the script was locked down. Verbinski would later say filming a movie without a completed script is “insane,” which I’m sure we can all agree on.
The first handful of drafts were by Scream 3 writer Ehren Kruger, but at some point he departed the project and the acclaimed scribe Scott Frank was brought in. Frank – who worked on scripts like Out of Sight and Minority Report among many others – evidently did not work closely with Verbinski during his time on The Ring. Verbinski later claimed he had little to no contact with the writer while he was directing and Frank was coming up with fresh pages. The director relied on a visual notebook he’d created before production began, and this notebook was evidently more valuable to him than the actual screenplay throughout the majority of shooting.
Aside from working without a finished screenplay, Verbinski’s biggest challenge making The Ring was staying upbeat. He later said making the horror film was – quote – “no fun,” and claimed working on some of the darker aspects of it became rather depressing. Perhaps adding to the gloom was the fact they shot most of the exteriors in Washington state during the winter. If you’ve ever been to the Pacific Northwest during that time of year, you know a rather somber atmosphere can be found there, which aligned perfectly with “The Ring‘s grim worldview. Verbinski and his cinematographer Bojan Bazelli lit the film in soft light and attempted to eliminate shadows from the proceedings in order to heighten the surreal vibe they were trying to put forth.
Not loving the rainy atmosphere was the production designer, Tom Duffield, who complained trying to build and paint sets in the perpetual rain provided by the state was a nightmare worthy of Samara Morgan.
Speaking of nightmare, one of the film’s most disturbing and memorable scenes evokes all kinds of squeamish feelings – and it wasn’t even in the screenplay. About halfway through the film, Rachel has a very uncomfortable-looking run-in with a hairball, or more specifically, a string of hair that she pulls from her throat, one that seemingly never ends. Though it wasn’t in the script, Verbinski pitched the idea to Watts a couple weeks before shooting it, and she agreed to do it, though the director was worried the actress – or her agent – would object to such an unflattering visual.
But Watts was apparently a trooper on set; Verbinski claimed she worked nearly 18 hours a day – 20 if you include hair and makeup – though she never complained about the rough schedule.
Which, of course, eventually worked out for the best. Although when The Ring opened in October of 2002, the studio wasn’t so sure it was going to be a hit. Advance screenings held only a week before opening were only 60-70% full, and though people in attendance loved the flick, Dreamworks worried there just wasn’t enough awareness out there for it.
The PR for the movie involved using creepy websites to market the idea of a cursed videotape, and in some cases actual VHS tapes were reportedly placed at selected venues in order to build an organic “is this for real?” buzz in the vein of what The Blair Witch Project did. They also added an enticing tagline to the campaign: “Before you die, you see The Ring.” Additionally, they cut commercials that included audiences freaking out during the movie, still a popular marketing ploy. The posters, which initially depicted not more than just a shadowy circle, added an image of the Watts character screaming in terror, in addition to showing off the ominous brick well that plays a central role in the drama. The studio also learned to embrace the PG-13 rating the film was given, reasoning that teenagers and young adults were going to be providing the majority of the movie’s profits.
Dreamworks decided to open the film in less than 2,000 theaters its opening weekend, hoping like hell that might create more of a demand for it. The idea paid off when The Ring opened to $15 million its opening weekend, about $5 million more than their tracking numbers had indicated. Now emboldened, the studio added hundreds of theaters during its next weekend, Halloween weekend to be precise, and the film exploded, making $18 million over the frame and solidifying it as a word-of-mouth hit. When all was said and done, the film made about $250 million worldwide off a budget in the low 40s, ensuring a scary-good profit. More importantly, The Ring was swiftly established as a new horror classic, opening the door for a bevy of imitators and two sequels… One has to wonder if a reboot is on the way; as of this writing, there is nothing official, but as is the case with Samara, it’s probably not going to be easy to bury this franchise forever.
A couple of the previous episodes of this show can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
The post The Ring (2002) – What Happened to This Horror Movie? appeared first on JoBlo.