Last Updated on July 7, 2025 by Angel Melanson
Following in the footsteps of Halloween, Scream, and Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer is getting the legacy sequel treatment this month. The last time the bloody slasher franchise hit our screens was in 2021 with the eventually-cancelled miniseries, and there hasn’t been a big-screen flick since 2006. Two decades later, The Fisherman is back to cut down a brand new set of friends desperate to keep their summer antics secret, even at the risk of losing their lives.
It's exciting news for anyone who has been following the franchise since 1997, especially since the project has been trying to get off the ground in some form or another since 2014. This film is directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, best known for her work on Do Revenge, Someone Great, and Sweet Vicious. And she’s not the only new face in the world of I Know What You Did Last Summer, with fresh meat in the cast as well as some survivors of The Fisherman to guide them along the way. As we gear up for another trip to Southport, North Carolina, we round up everything you need to know about what’s sure to be this summer’s biggest slasher.
Release Date
I Know What You Did Last Summer will be released by Sony Pictures on July 18. It will be a busy Friday for film fans, with both Smurfs and Ari Aster’s latest nightmare fuel, Eddington, hitting cinema screens at the same time. What a triple bill that would be.
Cast
Ready to slay the eagerly anticipated reboot is a fresh bunch of lambs headed to the slaughter, and a few familiar faces. Newcomers to the franchise include Stranger Things’ Madelyn Cline, Bodies Bodies Bodies’ Chase Sui Wonders, William Tell’s Jonah Hauer-King, Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead’s Tyriq Withers, and The Friend’s Sarah Pidgeon.
Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt are both set to reprise their roles as Ray and Julie for the film, ready to offer the scared youngsters some words of wisdom. Speaking about their return, Robinson said, “There was no movie without them” (per Yahoo! Entertainment).
Hewitt spoke to Extra TV about where her character is at more than two decades after the horrifying events of the first film: “I think she’s figured out a way to put herself in a position in her life that she can deal every day with what happened to her in her teens. She’s a little edgier. She’s funny. She’s funny in this movie, which I really appreciate. I think you just see that she’s lived in this person for a while.”
Freddie Prinze Jr. did the same in an interview with Entertainment Weekly: “Catching up with Ray, you see how that has shaped him into the position he's in now. 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 me, so I think he's probably bottled up a lot more of those feelings we've talked about.”
Sarah Michelle Gellar will not appear onscreen next to her husband, Prinze Jr., in the latest film, given that Helen Shivers was very, very dead when we last saw her. “I'm involved in the sense of, like, I feel like part of it,” she told People. Ryan Phillippe’s Barry Cox, also died in the original, and we don't expect to see him resurrected from the dead. One character who did survive the film series is Karla Wilson, played by Brandy, who has remained tight-lipped about whether or not she will return, also telling People: “You'll have to go see the movie.”
It’s so far unclear who will be under the hood of The Fisherman this time around, but Robinson let Bloody Disgusting know the killer will have more at his disposal than just a hook this time around: “The hook is the weapon of choice, but this time he has a lot more in the arsenal. We looked at all different nautical-themed weaponry for The Fisherman to collect victims with.”
Plot
The latest I Know What You Did Last Summer is set 28 years after the events in the original, as a fresh set of friends try to hide their deadly summertime antics that inevitably come back to bite them. An official synopsis reads: “When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences. One year later, the past comes back to haunt them as they learn someone knows what they did last summer. Stalked by a mysterious killer, they soon seek help from two survivors of the legendary Southport massacre of 1997.”
Robinson described the film as “balls-to-the-wall fun” when speaking with people, as well as a “popcorn summer event”. She added: “We approached it like super fans, so I think people are going to be really happy. All the things that you want to see in this movie, you're going to see in this movie.” And the trailer promised about as much.
Trailer
The first trailer for the film, released on April 22, gives fans a taste of The Fisherman’s bloody killing spree, plenty of classic slasher one-liners, and Easter eggs aplenty for die-hard I Know What You Did Last Summer fans.
And we’re not just talking about hooks and hacked up bodies, nor Hewitt and Prinze Jr’s return, but there is a scene paying homage to Shivers’ iconic chase with The Fisherman that teases we will be returning to some very famous set pieces. One red bath bomb scene also teases one of Robinson’s biggest inspirations on the film, as she told Entertainment Weekly: “Visually, for me, it was about going back to my biggest touchstone for this movie, Jaws. I was like, ‘I want beautiful colors, beautiful setting, blue water, red blood’. For me, it's kind of like a throwback, and what I hope is that it feels like it's fresh in its nostalgia.”
Production
The fourth I Know What You Did Last Summer film has been a long time in the making – more than a decade, in fact. Plans for a new installment began in 2014 with Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard signed on to write a script with no connection to the previous films. When this eventually fell through, and the 2021 TV show ended up cancelled, the project was saved from the ashes when Robinson pitched her idea to Sony. It was then put into development in February 2023, with original producer Neal H. Moritz returning.
The following year, Prinze Jr. and Hewitt confirmed their involvement in the film, with new cast members announced in the coming months. Principal photography took place in New South Wales, Australia, in October 2024 before filming began shortly after, wrapping in March 2025 in both NSW and Los Angeles.
Return to Southport when I Know What You Did Last Summer lands in theaters July 18, stay tuned for our interviews with Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt, and read more in FANGORIA # 28.
