Original I Know What You Did Last Summer Stars Reportedly Returning for Sequel

More than 25 years after the original film landed in theaters, Deadline reports that a new I Know What You Did Last Summer film is on the way, which could also see original stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. reprising their roles. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson has been enlisted to direct the film from a screenplay by Leah McKendrick, with original producer Neal H. Moritz also potentially in talks to return. Robinson recently delivered audiences the Netflix film Do Revenge, which earned praise for the ways in which it channeled the spirit of teen-aged thrillers from the ’90s. 

No story details have emerged about what the sequel will explore, though Deadline notes that the concept is seemingly meant to serve more as an opportunity to pass the torch to a new generation as opposed to merely reviving its predecessors. 

In the wake of the massive success of Scream, the original 1997 I Know What You Did Last Summer, which is based on the 1973 book of the same name from Lois Duncan, depicted a group of friends who accidentally kill a man in a hit and run, with the friends opting to cover up the accident as to avoid punishment. A year later, the friends begin to be tormented by someone who knows of their crimes. In addition to Hewitt and Prinze, the original film also starred Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Hewitt and Prinze returned for the 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, while the third film, 2006’s I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, incorporated supernatural elements and was released directly to video.

The killer in the original film was revealed to be the fisherman that group thought they had killed, as he came back to make the friends pay for the accident. That film’s ending gave him a more definitive ending, while the sequel saw his son hold the surviving friends accountable for their crimes.

In 2021, a TV series reimagined the source material for Prime Video, which similarly featured a murder being covered up and, over the course of the first season, depicted a series of twists and turns in which friends were held accountable for the death. That series had no connection to previous live-action takes on the material and wasn’t renewed for a Season 2.

This marks only the latest slasher to be revived with a blend of legacy characters and fresh faces, as Halloween recently earned a new trilogy of films while last year revived the popularity of Scream, which is getting a sixth film this March.

Stay tuned for details on a new I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Are you looking forward to seeing a new film in the franchise? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars.