It’s been unclear whether Brandy Norwood’s character Karla Wilson will return to the new sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer, and that was by design. When asked about Norwood’s involvement in an interview with PEOPLE this week, director and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson was teasing and evasive. Norwood did not appear in the original 1997, but in the 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. She was best friends with Julie James, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, who is returning to the revival along with Freddie Prinze Jr. For more, Robinson said “You’ll have to go see the movie.”
It can be hard to bring back legacy characters in the slasher genre, as the death toll is typically pretty high, so fans and reporters have had their eye on anyone who has survived the previous installments in this franchise. It was announced early on that Hewitt and Prinze would reprise their roles as Julie and Ray, the central couple of the first two movies.
Knowing that Karla made it through the story, an interview from Entertainment Tonight asked Norwood about this revival back in August. Her response was surprisingly straightforward — “I heard some things about [that], so, hopefully,” she said. “I don’t know how she would come back. I haven’t thought about that yet but I know that she should come back. She should definitely come back.”
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Norwood confirmed that she had been contacted about a part in the movie, but it sounds like she hadn’t signed anything official or done any filming at the time. The movie began shooting in October, so the timeline definitely checks out. However, as the release date draws nearer, it looks like Robinson is teasing Norwood’s involvement as one last big mystery to keep fans intrigued.
Robinson did share some insight on her approach to this movie on Wednesday, and its tone. “It is not a serious movie,” she said. “It is a really fun, popcorn summer event.” At the same time, she said the horror aspect of the story has been “ratcheted up to a hundred in this — it’s much more brutal. There’s definitely more methodology to every kill in this movie, unlike the first, which is kind of just him stalking them and going after them. There’s not a lot of gore or blood or violence in the first one. There certainly is in this one.”
I Know What You Did Last Summer is scheduled to hit theaters in the U.S. on July 18th. So far, we have seen a few preview images, but no trailer. In the meantime, the original movie is streaming now on Netflix.
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