There’s a new sequel to the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer (watch it HERE) and its 1998 follow-up I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (watch that one HERE) coming our way from director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) – and while Jennifer Love Hewitt, who played heroine Julie James in the first two films, and Freddie Prinze Jr., who was Julie’s boyfriend Ray Bronson in those films, are both back for this sequel, they are not the leads this time around… Which you might have assumed, given the fact that Hewitt’s deal to return wasn’t closed until after filming had already begun.
Prinze confirmed that he and Hewitt are not the leads during an interview on the Scale Talk Podcast with David Miniatures. He said, with thanks to our friends 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.” Another thing Prinze confirmed in that quote is the fact that Ben Willis, the killer from the first two movies, is dead. Which was also the case in the 2006 sequel that most fans disregard, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer – but Ben Willis still found a way to come back in that one.
Robinson is directing the film from a screenplay by Leah McKendrick (M.F.A.), which has received some rewrites from Robinson and journalist Sam Lansky. McKendrick told Collider a while back that the new sequel will reckon with “some big ideas about hero and villain, right and wrong, how your skeletons come back to haunt you. And in the age of the internet and the age where fame is such a revered concept, the creation of TikTok and social media, who is Julie James in a world where there are no secrets anymore?“ McKendrick also said that when she went in to pitch her take to Sony, the most important things they wanted to hear about were “the accident, the event that kicks it off, and who the killer is.“
In addition to Hewitt and Prinze, the new I Know What You Did Last Summer stars Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks), Sarah Pidgeon (Tiny Beautiful Things), Tyriq Withers (Atlanta), Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid), Billy Campbell (The Rocketeer), Lola Tung (The Summer I Turned Pretty), Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story), Austin Nichols (The Day After Tomorrow), and model / musician Gabbriette, who will be making her feature film acting debut. Robinson’s Do Revenge star Camila Mendes (Riverdale) was attached at one time, but had to drop out due to scheduling issues. It appears that she has been replaced by Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies).
What do you think of Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. not being the leads in the new I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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