I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot: Freddie Prinze Jr speaks out on potential involvement

Fish hooks always had a different significance after I Know What You Did Last Summer, the 1997 teen slasher flick that quickly followed and capitalised on the genre fever stirred up by Scream a year earlier.

There’s another version in the works, due to hit cinemas in July 2025, starring a new generation of stars including Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks), Camila Mendes (Riverdale), Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid) and Tyriq Withers (Atlanta).

It will be directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who made the bitey high school comedy Do Revenge, a film that was clearly a homage to 1990s teen movies and series.

But what has everyone more excited is the prospect of original stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr getting involved. The two were in both the 1997 film and the 1998 sequel.

Prinze Jr gave an update to US Weekly on how negotiations were going. He said, “Nothing’s a lock until there’s ink on paper, until the contract is signed, but I’m definitely talking to them.

“And if we can make everything work — and I know they want to make everything work, I know I want to make everything work — then we’ll try and make it work. But we (have to) make sure everyone’s schedules fit.

“Everybody has to be happy with the script. I know Jen Robinson, the director, and I like Jen Robinson very much as a director and as a person. I think people like her are the future of this business. So, there are a lot of good things that make me want to do the movie.”

It’s not yet clear what roles Prinze Jr and Hewitt would play in the new film and whether it would be set in the same narrative universe. There were earlier reports one possibility is the 2025 movie would follow the template set by the fifth Scream film which focused the action on new, younger characters with the legacy characters inserted into the story.

Robinson worked with Sarah Michelle Gellar in Do Revenge and Gellar is, of course, married to Prinze Jr, so there’s a family connection there.

Gellar was also in the 1997 film along with Ryan Phillippe but the two did not return for the 1998 follow-up because (27-year-old spoiler ahead) their characters did not survive the killer rampage.

I Know What You Did Last Summer was adapted from the 1973 book by Lois Duncan. It told the story of four teenagers who on an isolated stretch of coastal road hit and killed a stranger. In a moment of panic, they cover up the crime.

A year later, they’re sent ominous letters with the message, “I know what you did last summer”, and soon the hook-wielding murderer starts picking them off.

The film had been a box office success, grossing $US126 million from a $US17 million production budget and a sequel with Hewitt, Prinze Jr., Mekhi Phifer and Brandy followed a year later. A third film released in 2006 was unrelated to the first two movies.

There was also a 2021 eight-part streaming series that rebooted the story, moved it to Hawaii and added a twist involving twin sisters. It was cancelled after one season.