Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr. return in 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' trailer: 'There was no movie without them'

Yahoo

18-06-2025

Jennifer Love Hewitt is once again calling out her killer — this time in the reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
The new two-and-a-half-minute trailer, released on Tuesday, kicks off at Danica's (Madelyn Cline) engagement party in Southport, N.C., where she's surrounded by her family and friends, including Eva (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers) and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon). While opening gifts, Danica comes across an envelope with a card that reads, 'I know what you did last summer.' Soon, Danica and her friends are reminded of a deadly car accident they were involved in — and kept secret — a year earlier, on July 4, 2024.
It's not long before the group of friends realize they're being targeted for the crime they vowed to keep secret. Desperate for help — and answers — they decide to track down people who've lived through similar terrors themselves: Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and Southport's final girl, Julie James (Hewitt).
'You survived this once. We need your help,' Eva tells Julie.
As the new trailer ramps up, we watch as a fisherman's bloody pursuit of each member of the clique intensifies, before finally ending on a chilling close-up of Julie, as she defiantly utters her iconic line, 'What are you waiting for?'
2025's I Know What You Did Last Summer is based on the 1997 film of the same name, which famously stars Hewitt, Prinze, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe. The original film, like the reboot, focuses on a close-knit group of friends who find themselves suffering the consequences of a hit-and-run they committed and covered up in the summer of 1996.
Eagle-eyed fans will notice additional nods to the original film in the latest trailer. At one point, Danica is in the same Croaker Queen pageant hall where Helen Shivers (Gellar) begins her famous chase scene with the fisherman. While bringing Gellar back wasn't exactly possible — her character dies in the 1997 film — involvement from Hewitt and Prinze was crucial for the reboot's director and cowriter, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.
'There was no movie without them,' Robinson said during a screening of the trailer on June 14. The Someone Great and Do Revenge filmmaker pitched the reboot's premise to Hewitt and Prinze directly. From there, they worked closely on developing their characters today.
'This movie is about how trauma informs and shapes and changes you underneath all the fun screamy gags,' Robinson revealed, according to Variety. 'It was about figuring out exactly what these people would be like today, later in adulthood, having lived with what happened to them for as many years as they have.'
For Robinson, paying homage to the original film was crucial.
'We never wanted to do anything for lack of a better word, 'gratuitous,' like for the sake of doing it,' she said. 'The way that we have built the lore of, especially the first movie, into this movie, allowed us to play with things from the original in a way that felt like it was a part of their story as well, rather than it being on top. It is very much woven within the fabric of this new installment.'
Wonders, while chatting with Entertainment Tonight, gushed about getting the opportunity to share the screen with Hewitt and Prinze.
'We got the OGs back for this sequel, and they're so involved in every step of the way,' she said. 'I'm on a texting basis with Jennifer Love. She's a legend.'
In I Know What You Did Last Summer, audiences will see Hewitt portray an edgier, more resolved Julie. She's no longer a teenager, Hewitt told Extra TV. She's living with her trauma as a woman in her 40s.
'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 said. '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.'