Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s newly released installment in the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise just clunked into theaters with a 38% Rotten Tomatoes critics score and a meagre $13 million opening weekend. Whilst the franchise has never been critically revered or commercially successful, Robinson had the unique opportunity to not just introduce a whole new audience to this cult classic franchise, but also rejuvenate the original film’s formula to excite older fans in a new cinematic landscape.
Yet, with a cast of carbon-copy, yet slightly inferior redshirts, a misuse of fan-favorite original actors, and the few original ideas Robinson introduced proving to be more divisive than rejuvenating. I Know What You Did Last Summer has fallen into the same formulaic, generic malaise that has befallen every recent requel.
To rewind: the term requel was coined by Evil Dead actor Bruce Campbell in 2013 as a way to define the burgeoning new filmic concept of both rebooting the franchise whilst also continuing the original story. Requels are meant to maintain the essence of the original story, whilst updating its structure, tone, relevancy, and cast for a new generation. The movie for which Campbell created this term, Evil Dead II, alongside Top Gun: Maverick and Creed, remain but a few examples of requels that succeed in capturing the original franchise’s essence whilst updating its formula for modern audiences.
Make no mistake, Robinson’s new requel is certainly a fine remake of the original franchise, but not nearly innovative enough to find itself amongst Campbell and Cruise as the pioneers of smart and impactful requels. Rather, this new entry can join the ranks of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Scream 5, Terminator: Dark Fate, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, films that certainly are watchable, but in their almost detrimental reverie for the past find themselves trapped in its shadow.
So why is it that these requels cannot hold a candle to their originals? Well, a primary and shared flaw between these films is the inability to create suitable new protagonists that can capture the iconic quality of the characters that once helmed the original films.
Characters like Sam Carpenter (Scream), Rey (Star Wars), Ava Brooks (IKWYDLS), and Phoebe Spengler (Ghostbusters) may be well-acted and reasonably well-crafted. However, they tend to be too closely married to, and modeled on, the characters that once occupied their new position in the franchise. With such similarities to the original protagonists these women often suffer the brunt of unfair comparisons, as no matter how well written or acted they are, the nostalgia built around those original performances are impossible to replicate. Such pressure of trying to meet an impossible standard of iconography whilst also being the face of reigniting a long-dormant franchise, often leads to severe backlash and bullying of these actors online.
This is most prevalent in movies which have been modernized with female protagonists, like Rey and Phoebe, new protagonists who are tasked with taking over the franchise from Mark Hamill and Bill Murray. The studios and creatives failed in their endeavor to fully ingratiate these women into the narratives and let them find their own space within the franchise and the larger story. Instead, they have shoe-horned them into a story that wastes their brilliance as actresses and contrives character narratives that don’t feel specific to them or their lived experience within the world.
Ghostbusters and Star Wars are franchises that are male dominated, 74% of Star Wars viewers on Disney+ are male and 55% of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’s demographic breakdown was male. With such male heavy audiences, these female-led requels and characters are pre-disposed to misogynist abuse online that creates a general disconnect between fan and character.
One must question then why these studios do not serve to protect their female stars through creating more original, compelling arcs for these characters. By straight jacketing them in the narrative shoes of the original male protagonists, it not only invites misogynist backlash, but in some ways, encourages it.
Moreover, these requels not only don’t do right by their lead actresses, but they tend to mishandle the original characters that created the franchise. Robinson’s film gives Jennifer Love Hewitt a few key moments to shine, but with nearly all of her scenes shared with her so-called ‘replacement,’ the close comparisons do not flatter either character. Hewitt’s presence serves to spotlight how Ava Brooks is merely a diluted echo of Julie James, but with muted dialogue and a bitter maturity to the performance, even Julie James herself feels like a dilution of Julie James.
This issue does not just affect the leads but rather bleeds into a problem of all original cast members and characters for these requels. Returning actors cannot replicate the magic of their original performance, and more often than not, the returning trio or duo dynamics that sparked investment in the franchise are rarely explored.
Dewey is killed in Scream 5 before ever sharing a scene with Sidney and Gale. Han Solo dies in The Force Awakens before reuniting with Leia and Luke. Ray Bronson is offed in IKWYDLS before fan favorite Karla Wilson can even reappear. This is not just unsatisfying for fans, but feels like a disservice to the original arcs of the characters.
Thousands of fan-written novels, theories, and videos have been created detailing the adventures of Han, Leia, and Luke after Return of the Jedi. Yet, with the fictional death of Han Solo and the untimely passing of Carrie Fisher in real life, the original Star Wars trio never got to reunite on screen after that 1983 movie. Their inability to reunite and the general dissatisfaction with fans over that, has been a problem plaguing many of these requels.
This only serves to embitter audiences towards new characters, as reunions that fans waited for are denied, seemingly just to clear narrative space for this new generation of copy-cat protagonists. These deaths are shock-driven rather than earned or satisfying conclusions, undercutting the original character arcs and alienating the very fans the requel was intended for.
So with trope-y ’80s and ’90s beats repeated narratively, subversive character portrayals, and a failure to create dynamic new characters, longtime fans feel robbed of emotional payoff and feel their long-time investment in the franchises have been wasted.
On the other hand, new viewers are handed stories that feel hollow, outdated and entirely too antiquated for 21st century film. In such dissatisfaction from both new and old fans, the requel problem becomes crystal clear. These films feel less like reboots or sequels and more like desperate attempts to repackage the original iconography, without much of the iconic-ness.
Going forward, these requels must learn from Top Gun: Maverick and Creed. Directors Ryan Coogler and Joseph Kosinski allowed the original characters to retain their respect and franchise relevance, while bolstering new characters in supporting roles that could be embraced in the first requel, and go on to lead the franchise themselves. Michael B. Jordan, Glen Powell, Danny Ramirez, Monica Barbaro, and Lewis Pullman have all become household names, and that’s because their requels were smart enough to allow Cruise and Stallone to reprise their iconic roles with dignity, while also respecting the new crop of actors.
Requels are not just about resurrecting old movies, dusting them off, and slapping some new shiny stars on them. No, they have to be redefined with purpose in the modern era to make them feel important for a new audience. Until Hollywood can learn the lessons instilled by Ryan Coogler on Creed and Joseph Kosinski on Top Gun: Maverick, we will continue to see these new requels as films that are mere inferior creations of the iconic films that once built genre cinema.
— Darragh Evans