Aquaman director James Wan is on board to direct the TV remake of the 1997 slasher, I Know What You Did Last Summer. Amazon is developing the remake as a YA horror series with a similar vibe to MTV’s Scream reboot.
A remake of the teen slasher has been rumoured before, with a feature-length remake close to getting the greenlight in 2014. Remaking the film as a series is an intriguing but surprising concept. The obvious comparisons to the MTV Scream show are being made mostly because there aren’t many television slasher shows in the history of the medium, so there’s not much to compare it to.
It’s also a curious choice from Amazon considering their recent TV decisions. They had very openly decided to eschew the smaller, critically acclaimed shows that were often born from their user-voted Amazon Pilots system in favour of big budget series that have the potential to draw in massive subscribers. The most obvious in-development show being The Lord Of The Rings.
I Know What You Did Last Summer doesn’t really fit into that category. The film is well known but likely doesn’t have the sort of large, devoted fanbase that makes a TV remake a surefire hit. It will be interesting to see how it develops.
Getting Wan on board is a great start though. He’s coming off the success of Aquaman, but he’s also directed horror films such as Saw and The Conjuring in the past. Considering the franchises those films spawned, Wan is the guy you want in charge of your horror project if you want it to have a long shelf life.
Wan is also on board to helm another TV pilot: Netflix’s The Magic Order, an adaptation of the comic series by Mark Millar and Olivier Coipel. Both that show and this one will likely be in safe hands with Wan helming the pilots and setting the tone for the rest of the series.
#Peace.Love.IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer
