Lola Tung and Nicholas Alexander Chavez were cut from the new I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel

There’s a new sequel to the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer (watch it HERE) and its 1998 follow-up I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (watch that one HERE) coming our way from director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge), aiming for a July 18 theatrical release. Jennifer Love Hewitt, who played heroine Julie James in the first two films, and Freddie Prinze Jr., who was Julie’s boyfriend Ray Bronson in those films, are reprising their roles – and they’re going to be facing off with a new “Fisherman” killer that’s stalking a whole new cast. Unfortunately, two of the announced cast members didn’t make it into the finished film, as Robinson has revealed that the scene involving Lola Tung (The Summer I Turned Pretty) and Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story) was cut out.

Robinson directed the film from a screenplay by Leah McKendrick (M.F.A.), which has received some rewrites from Robinson and journalist Sam Lansky. McKendrick told Collider a while back that the new sequel will reckon with “some big ideas about hero and villain, right and wrong, how your skeletons come back to haunt you. And in the age of the internet and the age where fame is such a revered concept, the creation of TikTok and social media, who is Julie James in a world where there are no secrets anymore?” McKendrick also said that when she went in to pitch her take to Sony, the most important things they wanted to hear about were “the accident, the event that kicks it off, and who the killer is.“

Here’s the new I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel’s synopsis: When 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. As you can tell from the synopsis, Hewitt and Prinze are not the leads this time around. They’re joined in the cast by Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks), Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies), Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid), Tyriq Withers (Atlanta), Sarah Pidgeon (Tiny Beautiful Things), Billy Campbell (The Rocketeer), model / musician Gabbriette Bechtel (making her feature film acting debut), and Austin Nichols (The Day After Tomorrow)… but not Lola Tung or Nicholas Alexander Chavez.

Asked about the absence of Tung and Chavez, Robinson told Variety, “It happens. You shoot something and, when you watch the scene, it doesn’t fit in the film.” Their scene would have been the opening scene of the movie, but “it didn’t work within the film that we were creating. And when you’re trying to make something that’s bold, sometimes that happens. But they are so fantastic, so it was definitely a hard choice.” When Tung and Chavez were notified that they wouldn’t be in the movie, “everybody was so professional about it. They’re so sweet, so lovely. They totally got it. Maybe they’ll make the sequel.“

Are you disappointed to hear that neither Lola Tung or Nicholas Alexander Chavez will be showing up in the new I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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