10 Horror Franchises That Ended Too Soon

4. I Know What You Did Last Summer

28 Days Later Big Ben
Columbia

To responded to Julie Jones' screams of "What are you waiting for, huh?!" in that first movie, so many of us are still waiting for a proper third movie in the Last Summer franchise.

After Scream reinvented the horror genre in 1996, a slew of films looked to follow the lead of Wes Craven's classic. And one of the better movies to come along at that point was 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer. Not only that, for that '97 picture was followed up a year later by the equally impressive I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.

For years, fans were teased with the idea of a third and final outing for the franchise, I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. That threequel would indeed arrive in 2006, but it would have minimal ties to the previous two movies.

In fact, the only tie to the first two films was the fact that the killer of I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer turned out to be demented, presumed dead fisherman Ben Willis. As for Jennifer Love Hewitt's Julie Jones and Freddie Prinze Jr.'s Ray Bronson? Absent without trace.

So instead of the fitting final leg of this trilogy for characters audiences had spent two movies getting invested in, we were given a third film that was a made-for-TV piece of trash. Whether it's a fourth movie bringing back Julie and Ray, or a new movie that simply ignores I'll Always Know, there's still a sense of loose ends needing to be tied up for this once-popular franchise.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.