I Know What You Did Last Summer's Box Office Opening Just Killed The Franchise

Another week, another disappointing result for a horror sequel at the 2025 summer box office. Blumhouse and Universal Pictures recently had to suffer the misfire that was "M3GAN 2.0," which isn't going to make a third of what the original "M3GAN" did. But while it's not nearly as bad in the early going for Sony Pictures, the studio's "I Know What You Did Last Summer" legacy sequel opened in theaters over the weekend and, sad to say, it fell pretty far short of expectations as well.

"I Know What You Did Last Summer" opened to an estimated $13 million domestically over the weekend, coupled with $11.6 million overseas. That gives it a $24.6 million global start against a reported $18 million budget. That's by no means a disaster but considering that pre-release estimates had "Last Summer" taking in between $16 and $25 million in North America, that's a disappointment. The re-introduction of the once-popular '90s slasher film series was directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson ("Do Revenge").

While Sony probably won't lose a lot of money on this movie due to its relatively thrifty budget, any hopes that this would revive the franchise on a longer term basis have gone out the window. Audiences had previously demonstrated a willingness to show up for long-awaited revamps of once-popular horror properties this year, with "28 Years Later" ($145 million worldwide) and "Final Destination Bloodlines" ($285 million worldwide) both doing big business. Sorry to say, though, this one couldn't catch a similar wave.

There's no reason to believe word of mouth will help here, either, as the fourth movie in the "Last Summer" franchise holds a poor 38% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes to go with a lousy C+ CinemaScore. It's also perhaps worth pointing out that Amazon Prime Video's "I Know What You Did Last Summer" TV show was canceled after just one season in 2022. The interest just doesn't seem to be there in any meaningful way to keep this enterprise alive.

The latest installment in the "Last Summer" franchise centers on five friends who inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, which they decide to cover up and keep a secret. A year later, though, it comes to light that, you guessed it, someone knows what they did last summer, and horror ensues. The sequel hits many of the same beats as "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (1997), with both Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt reprising their roles as Ray Bronson and Julie James, respectively.

In that way, it was taking a page out of the legacy sequel playbook, where it serves as a reboot for the younger generation while pulling in players from the past for nostalgia's sake. Everything from "Jurassic World" to "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" has executed this strategy with success. Unfortunately, in this case, the outcome was fairly muted. Meanwhile, the gold standard for horror legacy sequels remains 2018's "Halloween," which made an astonishing $255 million worldwide, kicking off a lucrative trilogy for Blumhouse.

Clearly, Sony was hoping the appetite would be there for this franchise as well. The original "I Know What You Did Last Summer" pulled in $125 million worldwide against a $17 million budget. It was part of the revived slasher trend that kicked off in the wake of Wes Craven's "Scream" in 1996. So, in some ways, this franchise has always lived in the shadow of "Scream."

To that end, Paramount recently had great success with 2022's "Scream," which made $138 million worldwide, paving the way for "Scream VI" to become an even bigger success in 2023 (where it pulled in $169 million). While the brass at Sony surely had no illusions about "Last Summer" having that kind of juice, they also clearly hoped for a stronger result than what they ended up with. Those hoping for another sequel à la "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" should go ahead and temper those expectations.

"I Know What You Did Last Summer" is in theaters now.