Sarah Michelle Gellar rules out I Know What You Did Last Summer return with a perfect response: “I am dead”

I Know What You Did Last Summer’s sequel is bulking out its cast, but Sarah Michelle Gellar – one of the stars of the original 1997 slasher – won’t be returning for a painfully obvious reason: her character is six feet under.

“I am dead,” Gellar told People of her character Helen Shivers’ fate at the killer’s hands in I Know What You Did Last Summer, but joked that she is getting an “unofficial job title” to help out the production.

“My best friend [Jennifer Kaytin Robinson] is directing it, so we joke that I have an unofficial job, which is I am continuity. 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.”

The upcoming legacy sequel is a follow-up to the 1997 original and 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Freddie Prinze Jr. is reprising his role as Ray, while co-star Jennifer Love Hewitt is reportedly “in talks” to follow suit.

As per Deadline, Mr. and Mrs Smith’s Billy Campbell will be joining the cast of the horror movie, which is set for release on July 18, 2025.

It appears we’re in a period of big horror franchises returning to the big screen. Scream 7 is on the way in 2026, while horror supremo Mike Flanagan is directing a “radical new take” on The Exorcist.

For more from the genre, check out our picks for the best horror movies ever made, then take a look ahead at the new horror movies you have to look forward to.