'Rings' Without Naomi Watts

Naomi Watts has been having a great career as an actress. She has starred in movies like 'Ring' 1 & 2, 'King Kong', 'Insurgent', '21 Grams', 'The Painted Veil', 'The Birdman' and 'The International' among others. She has had the pleasure of working with great directors like F. Javier Gutierrez ('The Ring') and Peter Jackson ('King Kong') as she starred in these outstanding movies.

'The Ring 1' (2002) sold more than 2 million DVD copies in the US alone in its first 24 hours of video release

Naomi has made a name for herself while starring as Rachael in 'The Ring' that debuted in the year 2002 and 'The Ring 2' sequel that debuted in 2005. Sorry for Naomi, but the director did not pick her to be part of the reboot of the Franchise called 'Rings' that opened on Friday, 3rd Feb 2017. Gutierrez had reasons why his team did not pick Naomi to come back for the reboot and explains why Naomi Watts isn’t in 'Rings'.

Gutierrez explains that the studio had discussed the topic for a while. According to the director, the studio was concerned about trying too much to make 'Rings' like 'The Ring'. Putting Naomi Watts on the movie would make it so. The impact would mostly be felt by the old audience but for the new audience, there would not be much of a difference. Therefore, to avoid a forced movie for the old audience the studio decided to exclude Naomi Watts.

'The Ring Two' : Domestic Total Gross: $76,231,249

'Ghostbusters' is an example of a rebooted movie that had a forced impact on the audience. The movie has an entire female 'Ghostbusters' cast that is new and has not been there before. Bill Murray, who in his own right is a famous Ghostbuster, makes an appearance as a paranormal skeptic who is in opposition of the lady Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, this came out as strange and forced. Therefore, Gutierrez’s actions are understandable.

The new 'Rings' movie, without Naomi Watts, is based on a similar storyline as 'The Ring'. The Ring had been borrowed from 'Ringu', a Japanese horror movie. However, 'Rings' makes an effort in expanding the premise. A college professor finds the cursed tape which has Samara on it. The professor uses the tape to train his students on the afterlife. Showing this tape to a class of students is seemingly dangerous since they have the potential of spreading the 'infection' to a lot of students in the campus.

When a watcher completes watching the tape, they become subjected to a curse where they will take their life in 7 days. Alex Roe starts to explore the 'mambo jambo' surrounding the videotape and this gets his girlfriend Lutz worried. Lutz ends up sacrificing herself to save Alex and in so doing discovers that there is a film within the film that nobody has seen there before.

After excluding Naomi Watts, Gutierrez features Alex Roe, Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Vincent D’Onofrio and Johnny Galecki in the film.

Despite Naomi’s absence from the film, the movie is as horrifying as before and this version explores parts of the storyline that have not been explored there before. However, the video in the film may haunt its watchers for seven days but the movie is unlikely going to have a long lifespan.