Iconic ’90s Series Gets Long-Awaited Reboot, Original Stars In Talks to Return

in Movies & TV

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Helen Shivers looking scared in I Know What You Did Last Summer

Credit: Sony Pictures

Recent years have seen the slasher subgenre enjoy a major resurgence, with franchises like Halloween and Scream getting many new sequels between them (Scream VI is also just around the corner), while Chucky has now hidden its soul in the world of television.

There’s even a Friday the 13th reboot and a prequel series titled Crystal Lake (TBA) in the works. Things haven’t looked this positive for slashers since the mid ’90s through early ’00s, when Halloween, Scream, and A Nightmare on Elm Street sequels were all the craze.

Jason Voorhees in the water in Friday the 13th (2009)
Credit: Warner Bros. / New Line Cinema

Related: Every ‘Scream’ Movie Ranked From Worst to Best

But there’s another slasher series that has been begging for a sequel/reboot for 25 years. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) may never have hit the heights of Scream, but it did well at the box office, sinking its sharp hook into $125 million worldwide against a $17 million budget.

Just a year later, it got the inaccurately-titled sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), which really isn’t all that bad, a film that switches its gloomy seaside setting for the Bahamas, where iconic deranged fisherman Ben Willis (Muse Watson) lies in waiting.

I Know What You Did Last Summer character poster
Credit: Sony Pictures

Related: All the ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ Movies Ranked From Worst to Best

The first film stars Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie James), Ryan Phillippe (Barry Cox), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Helen Shivers), and Freddie Prinze Jr. (Ray Bronson), as a group of teenagers who accidentally kill a man while celebrating their graduation with some drink-driving.

However, the man they leave for dead turns out to be anything but, and he returns the next summer with vengeance on his mind. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe don’t survive the first film, leaving Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. to return for the sequel.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer character poster
Credit: Sony Pictures

Related: Every ‘Halloween’ Movie Ranked Worst to Best

While Hewitt and Prinze Jr. are seemingly killed off at the end of the sequel, though, many fans consider this to be a “dream sequence”, as the first film ends in a very similar way. As such, the door was left wide open (to some extent) for their return.

There’s also a third I Know What You Did film in the form of the downright abysmal I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006), a straight-to-video stinker that many are happy to pretend doesn’t exist, or at least isn’t canon within the series (it’s also inexplicably supernatural).

Ben Willis in his fisherman slick in I Know What You Did Last Summer
Credit: Sony Pictures

Related: Freddy Krueger Finally Returns In Long-Awaited ‘Elm Street’ Sequel

There’s also an Amazon Prime television series that streamed in 2021, however, like the Scream television series, it is in no way connected to the first two I Know What You Did films, or the third one for that matter, and instead serves as a modernized reboot of sorts.

Now, an actual third film is finally in the works, which will reportedly take on the life of a “legacy sequel”, not unlike Halloween (2018) and Scream (2022), which also serve as “soft reboots”. Deadline has reported that Sony Pictures is moving forward with the development of the film.

Julie aboard Ben Willis' boat in I Know What You Did Last Summer
Credit: Sony Pictures

Related: Every ‘Child’s Play’ Movie Ranked From Worst to Best

It is expected that the untitled sequel will be helmed by Do Revenge‘s Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, with a script from Leah McKendrick and Neal H. Moritz on board as producer. Meanwhile, Hewitt and Prinze Jr. are in talks to reprise their roles as survivors Julie and Ray.

Nothing else is known about the project, and whether it will be a theatrical release or one for the streaming services like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) remains to be seen. Either way, with just one bad film in its rear view, I Know What You Did 3 won’t have too much baggage.

Johnny Galecki witnessing the accident in I Know What You Did Last Summer
Credit: Sony Pictures

Related: All 7 Seasons of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Ranked Worst to Best

Are you a fan of I Know What You Did Last Summer? Let us know in the comments down below!

in Movies & TV

Comments Off on Iconic ’90s Series Gets Long-Awaited Reboot, Original Stars In Talks to Return