The horror genre is having a big reboot party right now and everyone is invited. Jason Voorhees is invited. Poltergeists are invited. Universal's entire gallery of classic monsters is invited. And in the upcoming reboot of the remake of Hideo Nakata's 1998 technophobic ghost story Ringu (AKA The Ring), Samara Morgan is being invited back out of her watery grave by Paramount for Spanish director F. Javier Gutiérrez.

It's actually unclear whether this new film will be a reboot or a sequel to The Ring Two, which came out almost ten years ago, but it's likely that it will be somewhere in between: not a continuation of Rachel's (Naomi Watts) story from the previous two films, but also not the kind of reboot that writes those stories off completely. Ten years is a long time, after all; long enough that almost no one owns a VHS player any more.

Paramount's movie now has both an official title and a new lead. Taking a leaf out of James Cameron's book, the film will be called Rings and will star Italian newcomer Matilda Lutz (Fuoriclasse) in the lead role, according to a report by TheWrap. The report calls Rings both a reboot and "the next chapter" in the franchise, but notes that it will have a new cast and Watts will definitely not star in it.

The last we heard about the screenplay, Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) was in talks to write it, and it looks like those talks went well because TheWrap states that the current version of the script was worked on by Goldsman as well as David Loucka (House at the End of the Street) and Jacob Aaron Estes (Mean Creek).

For those wondering if Samara is going to have to take her antics to Youtube in order to be seen (there are already a few videos on there that will steal your soul), the report claims that the film will once again be about a haunted videotape and that it will feature the return of Samara, as opposed to introducing some other evil ghost with the same MO.

The script is apparently based on Koji Suzuki's 1991 novel, which together with the rest of the details points toward this being a reboot, not a sequel. Whatever it is, don't buy it on VHS.

We'll keep you updated on Rings as development continues.

Source: TheWrap