Sony Pictures appears to be headed for another theatrical embarrassment. The studio’s upcoming reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer is tracking for a limp $10M opening weekend, according to EmpireCity Box Office. That’s a weak number for a franchise revival, especially one so heavily banking on ’90s nostalgia.
Yes, that “I Know What You Did Last Summer” — the glossy, post-Scream slasher that briefly turned Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. into teen royalty. Hewitt, who once headlined everything from “Can’t Hardly Wait” to “Party of Five,0 is back, joined again by Prinze Jr., in what’s being dubbed a “soft reboot” of the original 1997 film.
Plot details are still under wraps, but the new film brings in a younger cast (Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers, and Jonah Hauer-King); it was written by Sam Lansky and The Kissing Booth’s Kaytin Robinson. No, not exactly pedigree screenwriting.
The trailer dropped a few weeks ago and was, to put it kindly, uninspired — a generic horror sizzle reel that could have come from any number of Blumhouse leftovers. Reactions to early test screenings haven’t helped: word is the film is a mess. Wooden performances, especially from Prinze Jr. and Hewitt, a script filled with lazy clichés, and zero tension. It’s being described as one of those movies that’ll be fondly remembered by the Razzies come year’s end.
The original “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” If anything, it coasted on the goodwill of Scream’s success and gave just enough teen horror to justify two sequels. The third, “I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, “ was a straight-to-DVD affair in 2006 that effectively buried the franchise.
So why bring it back now? Two words: Millennial nostalgia. Studios can’t stop strip-mining IP from the ‘90s and early 2000s, hoping the warm, fuzzy memories of teenage movie nights will be enough to move tickets. However, there’s a key difference here: people liked “Scream.” ‘I Know What You Did’ was always a second-tier horror brand, remembered more for its casting than its scares.
Sony has had a rough go of it lately at the box office, and this latest reboot isn’t looking like it will change that narrative. Unless there’s a major turnaround in word-of-mouth or some miracle critical buzz (unlikely), this one might be dead on arrival.
“I Know What You Did Last Summer” hits theaters July 18.
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