It has been revealed that ‘Rings,’ the upcoming follow-up to horror hit ‘The Ring’ and its sequel, is in fact a prequel to the first film.

Bloody Disgusting revealed they have learned that the new film in the Paramount horror series “takes place before the 2002 remake that starred Naomi Watts as a woman uncovering the mystery behind a haunted VHS tape. Rings will take place years before the creation of said tape and tell the origin of Samara’s reign of terror.”

Samara, as many who’ve seen either the 2002 US production or the original 1998 Japanese movie on which it was based will never forget, is the white skinned, black-haired ghostly figure who chilled audiences everywhere and inspired a slew of other, similar-looking big screen phantoms.

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Based on the novel by Koji Suzuki, Hideo Nakata’s ‘Ring,’ AKA ‘Ringu,’ was a key film in the wave of supernatural horror dubbed J-Horror (short for Japanese horror, although much of it originated outside of Japan) which gained huge popularity in the West from the early 2000s.

It spawned a sequel in 1999′s ‘Ring 2′ and a prequel in 2000′s ‘Ring 0,’ as well as being remade in Korea as ‘The Ring Virus,’ before Hollywood got in on the action with Gore Verbinski’s ‘The Ring’ in 2002, for which Hideo Nakata himself would direct the 2005 follow-up ‘The Ring Two.’

‘Rings’ is set to be directed by F. Javier Gutierrez, who walked away from the long-delayed reboot of ‘The Crow’ in favour of this prequel. Akiva Goldsman, David Loucka and Jacon Aaron Estes reportedly all worked on the screenplay, and Italian actress Matilda Lutz (above) will star.



Although the film is still at the casting stages, it is set to hit screens on 13 November 2015 - the spot vacated by the revival of another Paramount horror series ‘Friday the 13th,’ which will instead hit screens on 13 May 2016.

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Picture Credit: Paramount, WENN