Hideo Nakata’s The Ring Two bears several ignominious distinctions. Easily the most misguided sequel to an American remake on record, arguably the worst English-language debut from a well-respected J-horror master, and perhaps one of the biggest cases of studio interference in the last 20 years, it’s no surprise that Nakata has flat-out disowned the movie and expressed nothing but disdain for his experience making it. While some horror fans consider it underrated, The Ring Two’s deeply troubled production and ridiculous results tragically killed all the goodwill established by its entertaining predecessors.
Yet, as we’ll learn ahead, The Ring Two’s lackluster shine was neither Nakata’s fault nor his intent, but rather the consequence of massive studio notes and misguided mandates. The creative interference forced Nakata to walk off the set and try to return to Japan. This prompted significant reshoots conducted by business executives, which only added to the confounding nature of the nonsensical story. Finally, the most intriguing aspect of The Ring Two’s production was the slew of true-to-life supernatural events that occurred while making the movie, highlighting a genuinely eerie sense of life imitating art.
In this article: We’ll examine the troubled development of The Ring Two, Hideo Nakata’s conflict with studio executives, the extensive reshoots that reshaped the film, and the bizarre real-life incidents that gave the production an eerie reputation among cast and crew.
Pop in the old VHS tape, we’re about to find out what happened to The Ring Two.
Development
The first important detail to remember about The Ring Two is that it was never meant to be a remake of Nakata’s Japanese horror movie Ring 2. Instead, the story serves as a direct sequel to Gore Verbinski’s American remake of The Ring, following its own independent story.
Adding to the confusion, the 2005 short film Rings, directed by Jonathan Liebesman, was made to function as a prelude to The Ring Two’s opening sequence. Therefore, unless you happened to catch the 16-minute short beforehand, the opening of The Ring Two is quite the confounding head-scratcher. Of course, not making much sense is one of the movie’s mystifying hallmarks.
Also inspired by Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel Ring, the silly sequel was written by Ehren Kruger (known for Scream 3), the scribe who wrote the two previous American installments. Once the star of the first film, Naomi Watts, read Kruger’s script, she found it so weak that she expressed zero interest in returning to the horror franchise. Yet, she was contractually obligated to star and resentfully agreed to reprise the role of Rachel Keller. As it would turn out, Watts wasn’t the only person who begrudgingly agreed to make the movie.
Casting Changes and Early Directorial Choices
Before getting into Nakata’s reluctance to finish the project, it’s worth noting that Richard Kelly was offered a chance to direct The Ring Two after making the cult classic Donnie Darko. Although Kelly declined and went off to make Southland Tales, Donnie Darko actress Daveigh Chase was initially considered to reprise the role of Samara Morgan after portraying the creepy villain in The Ring.
Alas, Chase had grown too much in the three years between films and was deemed too unrecognizable to participate. As such, archive footage of Chase from the first film was lazily recycled in the sequel, while Kelly Stables was cast to film new scenes as Samara.
Although three makeup artists worked simultaneously, it took five hours to apply Stables’ makeup each day as the ghoulish ghost girl. For the water-well crawling scene, stuntwoman Bonnie Morgan played Samara before going on to reprise the role in 2017’s Rings.
Before Nakata came aboard, Israeli TV commercial director Noam Murro was hired to direct The Ring Two as his feature debut but left the production due to creative differences with DreamWorks. Afterwards, the studio approached Nakata and requested that he come to America and make his English-language debut.
Following his miserable experience making the film, it would be the last time Nakata ever set foot in America to make a movie. Once Nakata agreed to helm the project, the movie’s release date was bumped from November 2004 to March 2005.
Although Watts, Chase, and David Dorfman were the only actors whose characters returned from the previous film, a pre-famous Mary Elizabeth Winstead was cast in her feature film debut.
Winstead portrayed young Evelyn in a flashback scene in which she is shown attempting to drown an infant Samara in the water well. However, the sequence was deemed too inappropriate and removed to secure a PG-13 rating. Yet because Winstead still appears briefly in a newspaper clipping in the theatrical version, she received credit anyway. Her full performance was restored on the unrated DVD cut.
Meanwhile, Carrie star Sissy Spacek was cast as the adult version of Evelyn because Nakata wanted a legendary scream queen to play the role.
Filming
Given the financial success of the first film, The Ring Two was loaded with a $50 million budget. Principal photography began in May 2004 and wrapped in November.
Since Nakata hardly spoke English, he had a translator on hand during production to clarify his vision to the cast and crew. Nakata recruited Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Beristain, fresh off Blade: Trinity, to help craft the visual aesthetic.
Not for nothing, but between a Japanese director making his English-language debut and a Mexican DP behind the camera, it’s no real surprise how the story became muddled and lost in translation.
Studio Interference and Production Problems
More frustrating yet, Nakata nearly stormed off the set and quit the project due to constant studio interference from Paramount executives. He only agreed to remain on board out of respect and admiration for the cast and crew.
The director became so disenchanted with the demands to either reshoot footage or create new scenes that were never originally envisioned that he not only blamed the movie’s poor reception on studio tampering, but he also vowed never to make another Hollywood movie. Twenty years later, he’s kept his word.
Filming Locations
In addition to filming at Universal Studios in Southern California, most of The Ring Two was shot in Astoria, Oregon, where the story is set.
One of the hospital scenes was filmed at John Jacob Astor Elementary School in Astoria, the same location used for Kindergarten Cop.
The lighthouse seen in the movie was filmed at the historic Yaquina Bay Lighthouse on the Oregon Coast, about three or four hours away from Astoria. Built in 1873, it’s the tallest lighthouse in the state and has a 21-mile spotlight range.
Meanwhile, the antique store scene was filmed further north in Chinook, Washington, and the Morgan Horse Ranch was shot at Emerald Glen Farm in Monroe, Washington.
The Real-Life Supernatural Incidents
Shortly after Rachel burns the cursed videotape, her son Aidan begins suffering from hypothermia while having a nightmare in his bedroom. Notice the ominous ring-shaped watermark left on the bed.
While filming the following scene of Aidan ambling into the county fair, several local citizens wandered onto the set believing it was an active carnival. Rather than shooing them away, the locals were invited to stay and became background extras on screen, lending an authentic spontaneity to the sequence.
Following the carnival visit, Rachel and Aidan are aggressively attacked by a herd of wild deer on their way home, which was deliberately meant as an homage to Richard Donner’s horror classic The Omen.
Eerily fitting beyond belief, the vicious deer attack was a harbinger of on-set mishaps and injurious events that mirrored the events of the movie itself in a shocking case of life imitating art.
For example, water plays a huge thematic role in the film. Not only do Samara and Aidan suffer from aquaphobia, but the movie ends with Rachel climbing out of the accursed water well and jumping off a cliff.
Now get this. On day seven of filming, the production office suddenly flooded due to a burst water pipe. Nakata was so unnerved that he invited a Shinto priest to conduct a purification ceremony. In Shintoism, water is believed to ward off evil spirits. Yet after the ceremony was completed, even eerier, borderline supernatural events continued to plague the production.
Believe it or not, a five-gallon water bottle exploded while nobody was around, once again flooding the same production office kitchen that prompted the purification ceremony to begin with.
If that wasn’t strange enough, while on location in Oregon, a prop truck was abruptly engulfed by a massive swarm of bees, very much like Rachel and Aidan are while driving in the film. The entire prop department had to evacuate the area immediately, only for the bees to disappear as rapidly as they arrived.
And perhaps the creepy coup de grâce? While filming on a Universal Studios backlot, a set decorator arrived at work and exited her vehicle in a parking garage, only to see a wild buck with giant antlers darting across the complex and heading straight toward her, once again mirroring what happens to the mother and child in the movie.
These bizarre and unsettling incidents are as inexplicable as The Ring Two’s plot and almost certainly the most interesting aspect of the production, far scarier than the movie itself.
Post-Production and Reshoots
Once principal photography wrapped and the studio ordered reshoots, the short post-production window resulted in the loss of Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, who scored The Ring for Gore Verbinski.
When Zimmer went to work on Batman Begins, he became unavailable for The Ring Two and was replaced by his understudies, Henning Lohner and Martin Tillman, who had also worked on the first film.
Speaking of the music, when Jake and Emily move into their new residence at the start of the film, a recognizable cue from James Newton Howard’s score for The Sixth Sense is randomly played.
Echoing the sounds of a far better film, it’s hard not to think about how badly The Ring Two pales in comparison to the 2002 original. And yet, despite being critically eviscerated, the sequel proved to be a modest international box office hit.
Release, Reception & Legacy
After being pushed back from November 2004, The Ring Two opened theatrically in North America on March 18, 2005. The film more than tripled its $50 million budget, grossing $164 million worldwide. While a moderate success, the film significantly underperformed compared to the original, which earned $250 million on a $48 million budget.
The film also fared far worse among critics, boasting a dismal score of 21% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 44 Metascore, and a C- CinemScore grade.
Yet one critic who favored the film over its predecessor was the late Roger Ebert, who actually claimed that the movie’s charm was its ability to generate genuine tension despite the nonsensical absurdity.
The Unrated Version
For those who have never seen the unrated DVD version, it features a handful of extra scenes excised from the theatrical cut. These include an extended opener, more interactions between Rachel and her new young neighbors, additional romantic advances from Max (played by Simon Baker) toward Rachel, and Samara tormenting Aidan in the carnival restroom.
However, the moment when Aidan first spots the deer in the theatrical cut was removed from the unrated version.
Instead of the power going out, as seen in the PG-13 cut, the unrated version alters the scene so that the lights in Aidan’s bedroom flicker on and off while the oven catches fire downstairs in the kitchen.
Several musical arrangements were also altered.
The Franchise After The Ring Two
Although the movie’s biggest disgrace was alienating and upsetting Hideo Nakata so much that he never made another movie in America again, the second biggest blemish is that The Ring Two put the American horror franchise on ice for 12 years.
In 2017, Rings was released as the final installment in the English-language remake and sequel series.
In Japan, several more Ring movies followed, including Sadako 3D in 2012, Sadako vs. Kayako in 2016, Sadako KOL in 2019 (which marked Nakata’s return to the franchise as director) and finally Sadako DX in 2022.
With diminishing returns ever since the original Ringu franchise launched in 1998, none of the recent sequels hold a candle to the original and its first American remake.
Following the release of the 2019 Grudge remake, director Nicolas Pesce voiced interest in crossing over The Grudge franchise with The Ring. Yet, possibly due to the underwhelming response to Sadako vs. Kayako, development on the potential project appears to have stalled.
Final Thoughts
As for the biggest takeaway from the making of The Ring Two, the film will unfortunately be remembered most for Hideo Nakata irately disowning the final product and becoming so disenchanted by studio interference that he still hasn’t made another movie in the United States to this day.
Sadly, the scariest aspects of the film are the disturbingly inexplicable series of incidents that happened to the cast and crew, closely mirroring what occurs to the characters as the story unfolds.
Stranger than fiction indeed. That’s the underlying truth of what happened to The Ring Two 20 years ago.
A couple of previous episodes of this show can be seen below. For more, check out the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel—and don’t forget to subscribe!
The comment section exists to allow readers to discuss the article constructively and respectfully, focused on the topic at hand.
What’s Not Allowed