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Trivia: When it was first released, cinematic legends Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were approached to assist in bringing the film to the US. While both loved the film (Spielberg has cheekily referred to Kaneda's red motorcycle as his "favorite Japanese animated character"), both also felt that it was too niche and unique to appeal to American audiences. Their refusal to take part in its American release are part of what inspired original distributor Streamline Pictures to purchase the rights to the film - they wanted to prove Spielberg and Lucas wrong.

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Trivia: The movie takes place in 2019, and features an Olympic stadium in Neo-Tokyo. Material in the film also hints that Neo-Tokyo will be hosting the 2020 Olympic games. In real life, Tokyo was actually supposed to host the 2020 Olympic games, before they were delayed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Trivia: While the vast majority of the film was achieved through traditional hand-drawn animation, the film does contain a smattering of CGI effects and computer-augmented animation. The most noticeable effect being the doctor's computer, which projects a strange, spherical-like reading that was produced digitally.

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Trivia: The movie came out two full years before the manga that inspired it ended. As a result, the ending of the anime and the ending of the manga differ greatly.

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Trivia: While Bryan Singer is the sole credited director, three different people served as director for the film. Singer started production, but was fired because he began to behave erratically on-set and would frequently disappear for days on end. (Singer claimed his behavior was due to "pressing health matters.") Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel then stepped in to direct the film for the period immediately after Singer's departure. Finally actor and filmmaker Dexter Fletcher was hired by Fox to direct the final two weeks of principal photography and oversee the editing and reshoots of the film. Due to union rules, Singer was the only credited director, with Fletcher instead being given an executive producer credit for his contributions.

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Trivia: The evil count is named "Magnus Lee." His surname is nod to famed actor Christopher Lee, who portrayed Dracula in a number of horror films.

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Trivia: In an incredibly uncommon move for a Japanese anime, the movie was produced with English as its primary language. The director, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, felt it made sense for the movie to be produced in English given the nature of the material and European influences. This marks a rare instance where the Japanese audio is actually the "dub" in a Japanese film.

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Trivia: Throughout the film, D is referred to as a "dunpeal" - a half-vampire, half-human. This is actually a mis-translation of the real word "dhampir," which refers to a creature that is half-human, half-vampire. The term originated from Balkan folklore.

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Trivia: The studio was so sure the film would be a flop, they preemptively fired director Robert Zemekis from his next project, "Cocoon," and instead gave the job to Ron Howard. Ironically, the film ended up being one of the top-ten grossing films of the year.

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Trivia: The film was written by Diane Thomas. Thomas was a struggling waitress and actress, and had been working odd jobs to make ends meet when she wrote the script. While there is some dispute over how it happened, eventually the script made its way to actor Michael Douglas, who championed Thomas and helped get the movie made. The script was so well-liked, she ended up getting numerous offers, and at one point was even attached to help write one of the "Indiana Jones" sequels. Sadly, she was killed in a car accident only a year after this movie's release, and it remains the only film she was credited for writing.

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Trivia: An alternate cut of the film was released on the movie's 10th anniversary in 2017. Dubbed the "Editor's Cut," this version of the film reinstates several deleted scenes, in addition to removing several other scenes for pacing reasons. It also features some alternative musical cues in key scenes. It was initially released as a digital exclusive, before being included in newer Blu-Ray and 4K releases of the "Spider-Man" trilogy.

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Trivia: This film features the final on-screen performance of Cliff Robertson, who portrays Uncle Ben in flashbacks. Robertson passed away in 2011, four years after the film's release.

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Trivia: With this film, Sam Raimi became the first director to helm three entries in a comic-book movie series.

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Trivia: Spoilers. The iconic character Mary Jane Watson was originally meant to be in the film. Actress Shailene Woodley was cast and filmed several scenes, which would have set her up as a love-interest for a potential third film after the death of Gwen Stacey at the end of this movie. However, the character was cut out of the movie during the editing process for pacing reasons.

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Trivia: Cloud's phone is actually a real model phone that was available in Japan around the time the film came out. It was a Panasonic P900iV.

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Trivia: Originally, this movie was meant to be a 20-minute short. However, fan response to the idea of a "Final Fantasy VII" movie was so positive, that the producers and director decided to scrap the short-film concept and rewrite it into a feature-length film.

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Trivia: A few years after the movie's initial release, an extended cut of the film entitled "Advent Children Complete" was released. It featured updated visuals and twenty minutes of new scenes that helped flesh out the story and supporting characters. "Complete" was released exclusively on Blu-Ray to help promote the format, and was never given a DVD release like the original cut.

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Trivia: This film has some notable connections to the comic-book company Marvel. To start, is was released the same summer as the 2002 film "Spider-Man." The Sheriff's family has the last name "Parker," which is the same last name as "Peter Parker", aka Spider-Man. At one point, the mayor asks what attacked, to which another character replies "A spider, man!" as a cheeky reference to the character. And Scarlett Johansson plays a fairly major role in the film... and she would later go on to play Natasha Romanov in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who goes by the codename "Black Widow " which is a breed of spider.

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Trivia: The film's title "The Ring" refers to the recurring ring/circle imagery seen throughout the film, as hinted by the tagline "Before you die, you see the ring." Somewhat oddly, this idea was completely original to this American remake. In both the original Japanese film and in the original novel series that inspired it, the title "Ring" is actually a reference to the neverending nature of the curse... it just keeps going on and on in circles. The filmmakers of this remake decided to make the ring literal in addition to being metaphorical.

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Trivia: Had the biggest time gap between films in the "Ringu" series - it was released 12 full years after the previous film - "Ringu 0: Birthday." The prior four "Ringu" films were released a year or less apart throughout the late 90's through the year 2000.

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