Freddie Prinze Jr. is summer ready…
Sony has released the first trailer for I Know What You Did Last Summer, starring the 49-year-old part-Puerto Rican actor.
The sequel, which will relaunch the slasher franchise of the same name, hits theaters on July 18.
For fans of the first three films, the plot here is familiar. The film sees five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, covering up their involvement in a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences. A year later, their past comes back to haunt them and they’re forced to confront a horrifying truth: someone knows what they did last summer…and is hell-bent on revenge. As one by one the friends are stalked by a killer, they discover that this has happened before, and turn to two survivors of the legendary Southport Massacre of 1997 for help.
Original cast members Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt are back, even if it’s unclear which other prior members of the horror universe might pop up.
In a recent interview with People, director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson was asked whether Brandy Norwood might reprise her role as Karla Wilson, the college bestie of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Julie, from sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, though she demurred, saying, “You’ll have to go see the movie.”
Franchise newcomers to appear alongside Prinze Jr. and Hewitt include Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, Austin Nichols, Lola Tung and Nicholas Alexander Chavez.
Robinson, the filmmaker behind dark comedy Do Revenge and rom-com Someone Great, directed the Columbia Pictures title from her script written with Sam Lansky, which is based on her story conceived with Leah McKendrick. Neal H. Moritz returned to produce — in a full-circle moment, after producing the original 1997 film early in his career — with Robinson, Jackie Shenoo, and Karina Rahardja exec producing.
The original I Know What You Did Last Summer follows four young friends (played by Prinze, Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe) bound by a tragic accident who are reunited when they find themselves being stalked by a hook-wielding maniac in their small seaside town. Prior sequels to the hit horror pic, loosely loosely based on the novel by Lois Duncan, were released in 1998 and 2006.
Today’s trailer is the same one shown for exhibitors at CinemaCon earlier this month.