The real reason Sarah Michelle Gellar turned down I Know What You Did Last Summer remake revealed
Sony released the first trailer for its highly-anticipated I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel on Tuesday, which introduces both new characters and brings back a few familiar faces.
Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. reprise their roles as Julie James and Ray Bronson from the 1997 original and the 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.
This new film focuses on a new group of teenagers (Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon), who are taunted by a vicious stalker who somehow knows a deadly secret from their past.
They ultimately get some advice from two survivors of the 1997 Southport Massacre - Julie and Ray - though it seems director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) tried to bring another original cast member back: Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Gellar, 48, played Helen Shivers in the original, though she has consistently said she will not be in this project, despite being good friends with Robinson, starring in her 2022 film Do Revenge, and being married to Prinze Jr. since 2002.
The reason is a simple one: Helen Shivers was killed in the first film, but, as Robinson told Entertainment Weekly, that didn't stop her from trying.
'I tried, okay? I harassed her! But she is dead. I tried to pitch some crazy s--- too,' Robinson joked.
'I was like, "What if it's like you weren't dead and you're actually alive, but in hiding?'" the director recalled.
'And Sarah's like, "I was on ice. I was the most dead a person could be. You can see my frozen body,"' Robinson recalled.
'I was like, "Yeah, but what if?" And she said, "I am dead. I am Sarah Dead Gellar,"' Robinson joked.
A photo of her Helen character is seen at the trailer resting on her gravestone, though it seems that will be all fans will see of that character.
Back in February 2023, when Gellar was accepting the SCAD TVFest Icon Award in Atlanta, she revealed Robinson was already trying to pitch her.
'As I explained to Jennifer, I am dead. I am dead dead. On ice,' Gellar joked of her character's fate, who was found alongside Ryan Phillippe's Barry in the icebox by Julie in the original film.
Gellar added, 'She's like, "Are you sure you're dead dead?" I'm like, "It's soap dish dead. I don't have a head. You can't write for someone that doesn't have a head. I'm dead."'
She was asked again about returning to the franchise in October 2024, though she teased a new role, of sorts, in the franchise.
'My best friend [Jennifer Kaytin Robinson] is directing it, so we joke that I have an unofficial job, which is I am continuity,' Gellar explained.
'So I'm always the one telling her, "Well, that would happen, or that wouldn't happen with those characters," so I do have kind of an unofficial job title,' she added.
I Know What You Did Last Summer will hit theaters nationwide on July 18.
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