There’s a brand new sequel to the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Final Summer time and its 1998 follow-up I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time coming our method, aiming for a July 18 theatrical launch – and with that date proper across the nook, we figured this was the precise time to place collectively a listing of All the things We Know In regards to the new I Know What You Did Final Summer time sequel. Right here we go:
CREATIVE TEAM
The announcement that I Know What You Did Final Summer time was getting a brand new sequel got here out of nowhere in February 2023, when Deadline revealed that, following years of speak about a reboot after which a short-lived TV collection being launched by means of the Prime Video streaming service, director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) and screenwriter Leah McKendrick (M.F.A.) have been teaming up for a movie that may convey Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. again because the characters they performed within the ’97 and ’98 movies.
Deadline defined that the concept for the brand new movie got here from Robinson and McKendrick, who blew studio execs away after they pitched this concept for a sequel final fall particularly given the current success of the Scream franchise. That movie was lately relaunched with unique solid members returning and the concept of bringing again unique solid members to attract in old-fashioned followers of the franchise whereas additionally including recent faces to relaunch the collection was too good for the studio to go up on. One other massive issue was the current success of Robinson’s Netflix pic Do Revenge, which was lauded for its throwbacks to late 90 pics like Merciless Intentions and was one thing execs knew Robinson may faucet in to when creating the story. The studio additionally noticed it essential to not reboot the franchise however do a form of “passing of the torch” kind of sequel the place unique solid members are introduced again whereas a brand new technology solid members are added to the ensemble, just like movies like Creed or one other 90s horror basic Scream.
McKendrick had been engaged on a Grease prequel known as Summer time Lovin’ at Paramount that was cancelled, and after that have she thought she was completed engaged on properties she didn’t personal. Then the chance to pitch for a brand new I Know What You Did Final Summer time sequel got here up. She instructed Collider, “The reason I was able to go in is because it was a Sony film, I have a relationship with Sony, and the producers I also had a relationship with. And I found out it was (Robinson) that was gonna be directing it. And more than anything I thought, ‘Because my love is so deep for I Know What You Did Last Summer, I have to protect it. I must protect it. I can’t let this be, like, cheesy and a cash grab.’ … When it’s like they’re rebooting something that you love so deeply from your childhood, you’re like, ‘I know how we can do this and not make it cheesy, and it can stay true to the mythology, and we can bring back the OGs, and it can be a culmination.’ You have all these ideas. So I met with (Robinson). She is so cool, she is so smart. She is just, like, down to try some edgy, cool-ass shit. And I was like, ‘I’m gonna give this my best shot,’ and I pitched. All they told me was they were like, ‘We need to know the accident, the event that kicks it off, and know who the killer is.’ Because they knew that if I had to do a whole fleshed out process of pitching, I was probably just not gonna do it because my heart had been so broken by the reboot game. But when they told me that, I was like, ‘I know what I’m gonna do.’ And no spoilers, but I will say that I think if you’re an OG fan, I think you’re gonna be happy. I think you’re gonna get it.“ She went on to say that Robinson is “thinking spectacle” for this sequel is able to “knock out some really complicated ideas” whereas guaranteeing the movie is a wild, enjoyable experience. She mentioned the story offers with “beautiful people behaving badly,” similar to the unique movie, and “it actually reckons with some massive concepts about hero and villain, proper and unsuitable, how your skeletons come again to hang-out you. And within the age of the web and the age the place fame is such a revered idea, the creation of TikTok and social media, who’s Julie James in a world the place there are not any secrets and techniques anymore?“
McKendrick’s script obtained some rewrites from Robinson and journalist Sam Lansky.
CAST
Though Sony went forward and mentioned that Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. have been concerned with the venture within the announcement, that wasn’t truly the case. Hewitt and Prinze hadn’t even been contacted but on the time! And it took fairly some time for them to shut their offers – Prinze didn’t formally signal on to reprise the position of Ray Bronson till September of 2024, and Hewitt’s deal to play heroine Julie James once more wasn’t signed till December of 2024, the identical month filming started.
The lengthy watch for Hewitt got here right down to scheduling considerations, as she has been engaged on the TV collection 9-1-1. She was all the time desperate to be within the film, although. In an interview with Coming Quickly, Hewitt mentioned, “The concept of returning to Julie James is absolutely thrilling for me. It’s scary. I feel on the non-public stage of being like, ‘what are people gonna think of the 45-year-old version of Julie James?’ I feel ’trigger I’m a girl and human, that a part of it makes me a bit nervous. However enjoying her once more can be an honor. I feel I really feel excited to indicate or see what she’s been as much as and the way she has modified, and what she nonetheless holds onto from that notorious night time on the street.“
For this one, Hewitt and Prinze are joined within the solid by Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks), Chase Sui Wonders (Our bodies Our bodies Our bodies), Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid), Tyriq Withers (Atlanta), Sarah Pidgeon (Tiny Stunning Issues), Billy Campbell (The Rocketeer), mannequin / musician Gabbriette Bechtel (making her function movie appearing debut), Austin Nichols (The Day After Tomorrow), Lola Tung (The Summer time I Turned Fairly), and Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story). Hewitt and Prinze usually are not the leads this time round, so a few of the actors on that checklist can be getting extra display time than they may.
Prinze confirmed that he and Hewitt usually are not the leads throughout an interview on the Scale Speak Podcast with David Miniatures. He mentioned, with because of our associates at Bloody Disgusting for the transcription, “[Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson] just took such good care of Love’s character, Julie James, and my character, Ray Bronson. They’re not the leads of the movie by any stretch of the imagination. She made them such a powerful pushing forward of the other cast. It’s not like, ‘Oh, here’s the Ray and Julie movie that we deserve.’ That doesn’t even make sense. That guy’s dead. So it has to be new generation. And the way she sort of laces us in there with them is just beautifully done. The script is wonderfully written.” One other factor Prinze confirmed in that quote is the truth that Ben Willis, the killer from the primary two motion pictures, is useless.
When you’re questioning how Julie and Ray are nonetheless alive, when the final scene of I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time appeared to suggest they have been being killed off… effectively, it appears like that scene is being written off as a nightmare, similar to the final scene within the first film. Robinson mentioned, “So the best way that I’ve approached the franchise is that I really feel like these last scenes within the first two motion pictures reside exterior the canon, as a result of within the first film she will get attacked by means of the bathe, by means of the glass door, and within the second film, she will get pulled underneath the mattress. In order that they’re each alive and effectively, and what I’ll say is that we’ve continued the custom in our movie.“
The occasions of I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time are canon, but it surely’s not clear if that movie’s solid member Brandy Norwood can be making an look. Norwood has been open about the truth that she want to be within the film, and confirmed that she had talked to the filmmakers.
At one time, Robinson’s Do Revenge star Camila Mendes was connected to the venture, however needed to drop out to work on Masters of the Universe. It appears Mendes was changed by Wonders – and Robinson confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that she additionally tried to get Mendes’s Do Revenge co-star Maya Hawke into the film, however couldn’t work out the schedule. Sarah Michelle Gellar was one other Do Revenge solid member that the director couldn’t get into this film… since she performed a personality who was killed off within the first film. Robinson mentioned, “I truly tried to get Maya Hawke, and we couldn’t work it out with schedules. I imply, the massive one (was Sarah Michelle Gellar). I attempted relentlessly, and he or she’s useless. I attempted, okay? I harassed her! However she is useless. I attempted to pitch some loopy s— too. I used to be like, ‘What if it’s such as you weren’t useless and also you’re truly alive, however in hiding?’ And Sarah’s like, ‘I was on ice. I was the most dead a person could be. You can see my frozen body.’ I used to be like, ‘Yeah, but what if?’ And he or she mentioned, ‘I am dead. I am Sarah Dead Gellar.’“
Since she’s married to Prinze and considers Robinson to be an excellent buddy, Gellar was on the fringes on the film anyway. She instructed Folks, “My greatest buddy [Jennifer Kaytin Robinson] is directing it, so we joke that I’ve an unofficial job, which is I’m continuity. So I’m all the time the one telling her, ‘Well, that would happen, or that wouldn’t occur with these characters,’ so I do have form of an unofficial job title.“
Throughout manufacturing, Wonders instructed Folks that engaged on the film was “really fun, and the cast is incredible. We filmed partially in Australia and now we’re finishing up in L.A.” She described director Robinson as “a genius” and talked about that, along with working with Hewitt and Prinze, she additionally had the prospect to satisfy Gellar. She mentioned the trio are “icons, and we’ve gotten to meet all of them. They’re absolute legends and live up to all my expectations, which is a lot.” Engaged on the film has been “incredible” and “so surreal” – and when she acted in scenes with Hewitt and Prinze, “I needed to act with my contacts out, ‘cause I couldn’t focus whereas seeing them act in entrance of me.“
STORY
In case you want a refresher, the primary I Know What You Did Final Summer time was directed by Jim Gillespie from a screenplay by Kevin Williamson that was impressed by a Lois Duncan novel. The movie has the next synopsis: A 12 months after working over a fisherman and dumping his physique within the water, 4 associates reconvene when Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) receives a daunting letter telling her that their crime was seen. Whereas pursuing who he thinks is chargeable for the letter, Barry (Ryan Phillippe) is run over by a person with a meat hook. The bloodletting solely will increase from there, because the killer with the hook continues to stalk Julie, Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.). I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time was directed by Danny Cannon from a screenplay by Trey Callaway. The synopsis: A 12 months after killing vengeful hit-and-run sufferer Ben Wills (Muse Watson), who gutted her associates with an iron hook, school scholar Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) continues to be shaken by the expertise. When her roommate, Karla (Brandy), wins a trip for 4 to the Bahamas, she plans to convey alongside her boyfriend, Tyrell (Mekhi Phifer), engaging Will (Matthew Settle) and Julie. On the resort, Julie begins receiving threatening notes and realizes Ben continues to be alive.
Now, right here’s the brand new sequel’s synopsis: When 5 associates inadvertently trigger a lethal automobile accident, they cowl up their involvement and make a pact to maintain it a secret moderately than face the implications. A 12 months later, their previous comes again to hang-out them they usually’re pressured to confront a horrifying fact: somebody is aware of what they did final summer season… and is hell-bent on revenge. As one after the other the buddies are stalked by a killer, they uncover this has occurred earlier than, they usually flip to 2 survivors of the legendary Southport Bloodbath of 1997 for assist.
Prinze instructed Entertainment Weekly, “Catching up with Ray, you see how that has shaped him into the position he’s in now. He loves his town and not everyone else does, in his view, and he’s a little grumpier with the way the world has treated him since [the 1997 Southport Massacre]. So he has gone through a lot, and I don’t know if he’s dealt with it the way the modern man deals with stuff, you know what I mean? He’s a guy from the ’90s like myself, so I think he’s probably bottled up a lot more of those feelings we’ve talked about.” He went on to disclose, “Ray has a bar that he runs. It’s form of the place he’s at in his life now. He’s not the lively fisherman that he thought he was going to be. He’s managing and proudly owning a spot of his personal and making an attempt to maintain it afloat.“
Robinson added, “I got here to this initially desirous to dig into: if this factor had occurred to you, how would that form you, and what individual do you turn into after it? So actually wanting to take a look at each Ray and Julie and say, ‘Okay, how did this thing shape both of them and where would they be today?’ … With out giving an excessive amount of away, they each moved by means of the trauma and have become totally realized adults, and I feel had very alternative ways of coping with what occurred to them. So that’s undoubtedly the primary supply of battle between them: how do you progress by means of this? And now that folks have far more instruments, do you utilize all of the instruments, or do you not? Do you push it down and repress it and simply maintain shifting? (The brand new movie is) about each Ray and Julie discovering catharsis by means of serving to the youthful solid on this movie. I feel they each have numerous emotional stuff that they’ve form of put Band-Aids on, and people Band-Aids are ripped off by our youthful solid, and this film is unquestionably about them. Every of them has an individual within the youthful solid that they’re related to, and it’s about them serving to all 5 of those youngsters transfer by means of this. And thru doing that, I feel they really are capable of finding closure and launch and are in a position to transfer ahead in a method that they by no means would have had they not skilled this with this youthful group.“
MARKETING
A number of pictures from the brand new I Know What You Did Final Summer time sequel have made their method on-line in current months, as you may see all through this text (and there are extra of them under). The primary trailer was proven on the CinemaCon occasion originally of April, then made its method on-line on the finish of the month:
The trailer signifies that the violence on this movie can be extra brutal than what we’ve seen within the earlier movies, and that’s precisely what Robinson was going for. Speaking to Collider, she mentioned, “I can’t tell you anything about the Fisherman! That ruins all the fun! I guess I can tell you one thing — this time, The Fisherman is a lot more brutal.” She mentioned one thing just like Folks: “It is not a serious movie. It is a really fun, popcorn summer event,” and but, the horror is “ratcheted as much as 100 on this — it’s rather more brutal.“
A poster has additionally been unveiled, as you may see proper right here:
And that’s all the things we all know concerning the new I Know What You Did Final Summer time sequel… for now. Are you wanting ahead to this film? Tell us by leaving a remark.
