It’s a fate worse than any Blockbuster late fee from back in the day: if you watch the tape, you die one week later at the hands of Samara Morgan, the black-haired ghost girl who needs no help getting out of the well she calls home. Last July, it was revealed that F. Javier Gutiérrez will direct the next Ring movie (referred to then as The Ring 3) from Paramount Pictures, and now the film's new, official name and first cast member have been revealed.

TheWrap reports that Paramount's upcoming Ring movie is titled Rings and will star Matilda Lutz in the lead role. A reboot of sorts due to the fact that Naomi Watts (who starred in 2002's The Ring and 2005's The Ring Two as Rachel Keller) will not return for this next installment, Rings will see Samara once again serving as the eerie antagonist along with the dreaded video tape.

Rings is scripted by Akiva Goldsman, David Loucka and Jacon Aaron Estes and, like The Ring and 1998's Ringu (the original Japanese film), is based on Kôji Suzuki's 1991 horror novel, Ring.

F. Javier Gutiérrez (who was at one point attached to helm The Crow reboot), will direct Rings, with Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald producing the project.

Curiously, Rings is also the name of a short film directed by Jonathan Liebesman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), who co-wrote the screenplay with Ehren Kruger (The RingTransformers: Age of Extinction, Scream 3). The Rings short came with the The Ring Two DVD and follows a teenager who watches the cursed tape following his induction into a cult called "Rings". No official links, however, have been announced between the short and the upcoming feature film. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for further updates.

Matilda Lutz currently co-stars in the Italian TV series, Fuoriclasse, and also had roles in The Fifth Wheel and Somewhere Beautiful. Gutiérrez previously directed 2008's Before the Fall, a film about a meteorite's impending impact on Earth.

Source: TheWrap
  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.

    When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.