I Know What You Did Final Summer time director and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson has spoken in regards to the significance of its legacy characters. The 2025 film is the fourth feature-length installment within the slasher franchise, which follows teams of teenagers being focused by a slicker-wearing, hook-wielding killer. The upcoming I Know What You Did Final Summer time incorporates a new crop of teenagers being focused for a vehicular manslaughter they coated up the 12 months earlier than, aided by returning survivors Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.), who had been central to the unique 1997 film and its 1998 sequel.

ScreenRant’s personal Brandon Zachary was in attendance at an I Know What You Did Final Summer time trailer launch occasion on Saturday, the place members of the forged and crew spoke in regards to the film throughout a Q&A afterward. Throughout the dialog, Robinson shared that she “worked really closely” with each returning stars whereas creating the story, ensuring they crafted “versions of the character[s] that felt right to them.”

She revealed that the film will discover how the trauma of their first two battles with the fisherman killer have formed Julie and Ray’s lives as adults. This can permit the film to have “a real emotional undercurrent” beneath the enjoyable storyline and “great kill sequences.” Learn Robinson’s full quote beneath:

I imply, there was no film with out them. [I] sort of got here to each of them, instructed them what I wished to do, and gave them the spiel of like, that is why I believe that is enjoyable now. Because of this this film ought to exist now. And we labored actually intently. I labored with each Jen and Freddie actually intently on ensuring that it felt like variations of the character that felt proper to them. And so it was a whole lot of conversations. It was a whole lot of speaking, as a result of there’s like, whereas this film is actually, actually enjoyable and it has a whole lot of nice kill sequences, there’s a actual emotional undercurrent to it.

And like we had been speaking about how traumatized would Julie James be? Like, you’ll be traumatized, they usually each can be traumatized. And this film is about how trauma sort of informs and shapes and modifications you beneath the entire very enjoyable screaming gags. So yeah, it was about determining precisely what these individuals can be like at present, later in maturity, having lived with what occurred to them for as a few years as they’ve.

What This Means For I Know What You Did Final Summer time

The Legacy Sequel Might Cement A Main Horror Franchise

The truth that Julie and Ray are returning to sq. off in opposition to the I Know What You Did Final Summer time fisherman another time after almost 30 years is already outstanding. In doing so, they be part of a heap of legendary legacy characters who’ve returned for main sequels lately, together with Bludworth (Tony Todd) in 2025’s Closing Vacation spot Bloodlines, Dewey (David Arquette), Sidney (Neve Campbell), and Gale (Courteney Cox) in 2022’s Scream, and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in 2018’s Halloween.

The celebrities’ most up-to-date appearances of their respective franchises previous to these legacy sequels had been 2011’s Closing Vacation spot 5, 2011’s Scream 4, and 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection.

Particularly if the returning characters are as rigorously calibrated as Robinson guarantees, 2025’s I Know What You Did Final Summer time may lastly cement the sequence as a significant horror franchise. Though the primary two films had been financially profitable, a completely fleshed-out franchise by no means materialized. It solely continued in spurts over the following many years, with a 2006 direct-to-video standalone sequel that earned a uncommon 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a short-lived 2021 Prime Video tv reboot that solely lasted for one eight-episode season.

Having The Sequel Be About Trauma Makes Sense

Customized Picture by Yailin Chacon

Usually, the usage of the phrase “trauma” when describing the driving drive of a contemporary horror film makes it sound to me like a generic “elevated horror” piece, given what number of horror films lately have particularly been metaphors for grief and trauma. Nonetheless, using this method is smart for legacy horror sequels like I Know What You Did Final Summer time. Returning characters are going to essentially be formed by their previous experiences, so hopefully Robinson and her co-writer Sam Lansky have discovered a approach to rigorously wield that component in a approach that feels contemporary and thrilling.

I Know What You Did Final Summer time

Launch Date

July 18, 2025

Runtime

100 minutes

Director

Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Writers

Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, Sam Lansky

Producers

Neal H. Moritz

Madelyn Cline

Danica Richards

Chase Sui Wonders

Ava Brucks

Jonah Hauer-King

Milo Griffin

Tyriq Withers

Teddy Spencer