The director behind the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer” reboot/sequel desperately tried to figure out a way to bring back Sarah Michelle Gellar but alas it just wasn’t going to happen…
If there’s one common feeling among fans of the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” it’s that Helen Shivers — aka Sarah Michelle Gellar — got a raw deal as a victim of the hook-wielding killer.
Gellar’s character was so popular and beloved in fact that Jennifer Kaytin Robinson — the director behind the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer” reboot/sequel — desperately tried to find a way to bring her back. Unfortunately, despite Robinson’s best attempts Gellar had to shoot her down by pointing out one major fact about her character.
She’s dead.
“I mean the big one, I tried relentlessly, and she’s dead,” Robinson told EW about trying to bring Gellar back. “I tried, okay? I harassed her! But she is dead. I tried to pitch some crazy shit, too. I was like, ‘What if it’s like you weren’t dead and you’re actually alive, but in hiding?’
“And Sarah’s like, ‘I was on ice. I was the most dead a person could be. You can see my frozen body.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but what if?’ And she said, ‘I am dead. I am Sarah Dead Gellar.'”
While Gellar won’t be resurrected for the new film due out on July 18, two of her co-stars are returning for the sequel with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. both reprising their roles from the original two movies in the series.
The new film follows a similar premise as the original after 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. 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 this has happened before, and they turn to two survivors of the legendary Southport Massacre of 1997 for help.
In addition to Hewitt and Prinze returning, the new film stars Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers, and Jonah Hauer-King.
Robinson also had hopes to reteam with another of her former stars after she made the well-received comedy-thriller “Do Revenge” for Netflix with “Stranger Things” favorite Maya Hawke. Robinson revealed that she tried to get Hawke in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” but it just didn’t work out.
“I actually tried to get Maya Hawke, and we couldn’t work it out with schedules,” Robinson revealed.
Still, Robinson got quite a cast for the new film with the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” sequel due out in theaters on July 18. Check out the trailer below:
