F. Javier Gutiérrez is preparing to bring a popular horror film franchise back to life.
Paramount Pictures has hired the Spanish filmmaker, one of the most awarded and lauded fantasy genre filmmakers his native country, to direct the third installment of its The Ring series.
It marks Gutiérrez’s second studio genre franchise film after Relativity Media and The Weinstein Co. chose him to helm the reboot of The Crow in another hotly contested director search.
The Ring threequel is the latest installment of the $400M-grossing horror franchise first launched in the U.S. by Gore Verbinski in 2002 with The Ring and its sequel The Ring 2, both starring Naomi Watts as a woman caught in the clutches of a cursed video tape.
The Japanese original Ringu, directed by Hideo Nakata and adapted from the novel by Kōji Suzuki, spawned its own series of prequel/sequels and spin-off films and led a wave of J-horror Hollywood remakes throughout the 2000s.
Gutiérrez earned genre cred on the international scene with his shorts Braziland La habitacion de Norman, followed by his 2008 debut feature Before the Fall (Tres días).
