49 Fun Facts About The Ring

Who directed the 2002 American film The Ring?

Gore Verbinski directed The Ring (2002); the following year he directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Who plays journalist Rachel Keller in The Ring?

Naomi Watts plays Rachel Keller; she had broken through the year before in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001).

How long do viewers of the cursed tape have to live?

Seven days: when the tape ends the phone rings and a voice whispers 'seven days', the time left before Samara comes for the viewer.

In The Ring (2002), what is the name of the girl in the well whose rage created the cursed tape?

Samara Morgan was adopted after Anna Morgan suffered four consecutive miscarriages, and could psychically etch images into objects and minds.

Which young actress plays Samara in the 2002 film?

Daveigh Chase plays Samara; the same year she voiced Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch (2002).

Who plays Rachel's ex, video analyst Noah Clay?

Martin Henderson plays Noah Clay, Rachel's ex and Aidan's father; the New Zealand actor later played Nathan Riggs on Grey's Anatomy.

Which veteran Scottish actor plays Samara's adoptive father Richard Morgan?

Brian Cox plays Richard Morgan, who electrocutes himself in the bathtub rather than discuss Samara; Cox later played Logan Roy in Succession.

Which actress plays Katie Embry, the teenager who dies in the opening scene?

Amber Tamblyn plays Katie Embry, Rachel's niece, whose death after watching the tape opens the film; Tamblyn later starred in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

In The Ring (2002), what does Samara crawl out of to kill her victims?

A television: Samara crawls out of the screen to kill Noah in the film's climax, an image taken directly from the Japanese original.

Who wrote the 1991 novel on which the whole franchise is based?

Koji Suzuki wrote Ring (1991); Vertical published the English translation in 2003, a year after the American film.

Which US city is the American film set in, chosen for its 'wet and isolated' atmosphere?

Seattle: Rachel Keller is a newspaper reporter in the city, and the remake swapped the original's Tokyo for the rainy, isolated Pacific Northwest.

What is the name of the inn where Katie and her friends first watched the tape?

Shelter Mountain Inn: Katie's group watched the tape in cabin 12, beneath whose floorboards Rachel and Noah find Samara's well.

What was Anna Morgan's occupation?

Anna Morgan was a horse breeder on Moesko Island; her horses drowned themselves, and a horse on Rachel's ferry leaps overboard to its death.

Which real Oregon landmark doubled as the Moesko Island beacon?

Yaquina Head Lighthouse, near Newport on the Oregon coast, stood in for the Moesko Island lighthouse glimpsed on the cursed tape.

Which studio released The Ring in October 2002?

DreamWorks Pictures released The Ring on October 18, 2002; it opened at number one in the US and grew into a sleeper hit over the following weeks.

Roughly how much did The Ring take at the worldwide box office?

The Ring grossed about $249 million worldwide on a $48 million budget, roughly $129 million of it in the United States.

Which screenwriter wrote The Ring before an uncredited rewrite by Scott Frank?

Ehren Kruger wrote The Ring and returned for The Ring Two; he also wrote Scream 3 and three of the Transformers sequels.

Who composed the score for The Ring?

Hans Zimmer composed the score for The Ring, beginning a long collaboration with its director that included the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and Rango.

Which Oscar-winning actor's bookend scenes as a murderer were cut entirely from The Ring?

Chris Cooper filmed bookend scenes as a convicted child murderer that were cut entirely; Cooper won his Oscar for Adaptation months after The Ring's release.

How was the cursed video itself used in the marketing campaign in summer 2002?

The cursed tape itself aired late at night on TV with no reference to the movie; the studio also built in-universe websites for its fictional people and places.

Which two prizes did The Ring win at the 29th Saturn Awards?

At the 29th Saturn Awards (2003) The Ring won Best Horror Film and Best Actress, the latter for its lead performance as Rachel Keller.

What first sent The Ring's director toward the project?

Producer Walter F. Parkes mailed him a VHS of the Japanese film, the 1998 Ring; Parkes and his wife Laurie MacDonald went on to produce the remake.

Cinematographer Bojan Bazelli gave The Ring what distinctive look?

Bazelli gave The Ring soft lighting and a grey blue-green colour, desaturated and cold; the palette became a signature of the J-horror remake wave that followed.

Who directed the original 1998 Japanese film Ring?

Hideo Nakata directed Ring (1998) and its 1999 sequel Ring 2, then crossed the Pacific to direct the American The Ring Two in 2005.

What is the name of the vengeful spirit in Ring (1998), the Japanese film The Ring remade?

Sadako Yamamura was thrown down a well; her mother Shizuko's psychic abilities had been publicly demonstrated and mocked.

In adapting the novel, the Japanese filmmakers changed the protagonist in what major way?

The protagonist went from a married man to a divorced woman: the novel's Kazuyuki Asakawa became Reiko Asakawa on screen, and his baby daughter became her son Yoichi.

Who plays reporter Reiko Asakawa in the 1998 film?

Nanako Matsushima plays Reiko Asakawa opposite Hiroyuki Sanada as her psychic ex-husband Ryūji; she also starred in the 1998 TV drama Great Teacher Onizuka.

Ring (1998) was released in Japan on the same day as which sequel, shot back-to-back with it?

Spiral (Rasen), directed by Jōji Iida, opened the same day as Ring; it flopped, and 1999's Ring 2 simply ignored its story.

What record did Ring set on its release in Japan?

Ring became the highest-grossing horror film in the country on its Japanese release, a success that spawned a sequel the next year, a prequel, and the 2002 Hollywood remake.

In what form was the novel first adapted, in 1995, before the 1998 film?

Ring: Kanzenban, a made-for-TV film broadcast by Fuji Television in 1995, was the novel's first adaptation, three years before the cinema version.

Which director was attached to The Ring Two before leaving over creative differences?

Noam Murro, a commercials director who later made 300: Rise of an Empire, left The Ring Two over creative differences and was replaced by the Japanese original's director.

Rachel and Aidan move to which Oregon town in The Ring Two?

Astoria: Rachel takes a job at the local paper, The Daily Astorian, and the film shot on location in the Oregon town and in Los Angeles.

Which animals attack Rachel and Aidan on the way home in The Ring Two?

Deer: a herd of wild deer surrounds and rams Rachel's car on the road home, in a sequence realised largely with CGI.

Which Oscar-winning actress plays Samara's birth mother Evelyn in The Ring Two?

Sissy Spacek plays Evelyn, Samara's institutionalised birth mother; Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the young Evelyn in flashback.

How much did The Ring Two take at the box office against its $50m budget?

The Ring Two grossed about $164 million worldwide, opening at number one in the US in March 2005 despite mixed reviews.

What was released in 2005 to bridge The Ring and The Ring Two?

A short film titled Rings, included on the 2005 DVD reissue of The Ring, follows a group of teens passing the tape and leads directly into The Ring Two's opening.

Who directed the 2017 third instalment, Rings?

F. Javier Gutiérrez, the Spanish director of Before the Fall (2008), directed Rings, which Paramount released in February 2017 after several delays.

Which Big Bang Theory actor appears in Rings (2017) as Gabriel Brown?

Johnny Galecki, Leonard on The Big Bang Theory, plays Gabriel Brown, the professor who has been studying the cursed tape in Rings (2017).

Who plays Samara in Rings (2017)?

Bonnie Morgan, a contortionist and stuntwoman, plays Samara in Rings (2017); Matilda Lutz stars as Julia, the young woman racing the curse.

In the original novel, on which island was the girl in the well born?

Izu Oshima: in the novel the investigators trace the girl's birth to the volcanic island south of Tokyo, where her mother Shizuko lived and demonstrated her psychic powers.

What was the resort in the novel, beneath which the well lies, before it became a lodge?

A tuberculosis sanatorium once stood on the site; Dr. Nagao, who had worked there, threw the girl down its well before the land became a holiday resort.

Which 1998 novel is the third in the Ring book series?

Loop (1998) is the third Ring novel; Birthday followed in 1999, and S (2012) and Tide (2013) later extended the series.

Which of these actresses was offered Rachel Keller in The Ring before its eventual star?

Gwyneth Paltrow was offered the lead, as were Jennifer Connelly and Kate Beckinsale; the director preferred a cast without big stars.

How did cinematographer Bojan Bazelli achieve the film's muted colour look?

In-camera with filters while shooting: Bazelli committed to the look on set with colour filters, and the film was timed photochemically rather than through a digital intermediate.

In The Ring (2002), what must a viewer do to survive the curse?

Copy the tape and show it to someone else: Rachel survives because she copied it for Noah, and the film ends with her helping Aidan make his own copy.

What is the name of Rachel's sister, Katie's mother, in The Ring (2002)?

Ruth Embry, played by Lindsay Frost, asks her sister Rachel to look into Katie's death after the funeral.

How much did The Ring gross on its opening weekend in the United States?

$15 million: The Ring opened at number one in October 2002 and, as word of mouth grew, finished with $129.1 million domestically.

What grade did CinemaScore audiences give The Ring?

Critics were kinder, with a 72% Rotten Tomatoes score, though Roger Ebert gave it a thumbs down as 'borderline ridiculous'.

Where did The Ring place on Bravo's list of The 100 Scariest Movie Moments?

Number 20: The Ring placed 20th on Bravo's 2004 special The 100 Scariest Movie Moments, and Bloody Disgusting ranked it sixth among the decade's horror films.