The "cursed" video is available as an easter egg on the DVD. Select look here and press down and your cursor will disappear. Press Enter. This has an interesting feature; your remote control is disabled. Once the "video" has started playing, you can't stop it, pause it, fast-forward it, or return to the menu. Unless you turn off the TV, you're forced to watch the whole thing. When it's over, the DVD returns to the menu, then you hear a phone ring twice before you're given control over your remote again.
For the choice of the film's color, it was decided that everything was to be tinged with the color green to give the film a sickly, unnatural feeling. Sets were also lit in a way that none of the characters have a shadow, to create an almost subconscious sense of creepiness.
Long before the movie premiered, the killer video was used as a commercial. The commercial did not mention any movie for nearly a month.
Gore Verbinski deliberately chose not to cast major stars as any of the main or supporting characters, as he wanted the film to be discovered by audiences. Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson and Amber Tamblyn would receive retroactive recognition for this film.
On its first week of release in the U.S. and Canada, select cinemas put actual copies of the cursed tape on seats for unsuspecting viewers as freebies. The cursed video is now available as an Easter egg feature on the DVD.
Naomi Watts: [starring in remakes] The success of The Ring (2002) at the box-office paved the way for several more American remakes of Japanese horror films including The Grudge (2004), Dark Water (2005), Pulse (2006), and One Missed Call (2008).