The news of a third instalment of The Ring franchise came totally out of the blue earlier this year, and now the reboot (which is also kind of a sequel and prequel to the first two movies) has been pushed back to 2016 and no longer has a release date as a result. Titled Rings, F. Javier Gutiérrez (Before the Fall) is directing the flick, but should you be worried about it based on this delay?
After all, it’s been over a decade since The Ring Two was released, and seeing as there’s very little demand for another instalment in the franchise, it’s hard to see who this new take is aimed at. It doesn’t help that both critically and finally, the sequel didn’t come anywhere close to the first movie, though it did still make a decent enough profit to warrant a follow-up (it’s just taken Paramount ten years to get around to it).
Don’t worry if you are a fan of the franchise though, as the main reason The Ring 3 has been delayed is apparently because of how packed Paramount’s Fall 2016 slate already is. That’s something of an odd excuse though, especially as the likes of The Big Short and Anomalisa have very little to do with a 3D horror movie, and if the studio ends up rescheduling this latest instalment in The Ring franchise to next January or February, we’ll know that it probably isn’t one to get too excited about.
The film is set to star Matilda Lutz and takes place before The Ring, with the origin story of Samara (the girl featured in the videos which then kill people) set to take centre stage. Sounds interesting enough, but we’ll just have to wait and see how Rings turns out.