‘IKWYDLS’ cut Lola Tung, Nicholas Alexander Chavez roles

The Fisherman had nothing to do with Lola Tung and Nicholas Alexander Chavez’s roles getting slashed in the latest remake of I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson confirmed at the horror slasher’s Los Angeles premiere on Monday that Tung and Chavez both had a scene at the opening of the film, but she made the “hard choice” to slash that sequence.

“It happens. You shoot something and, when you watch the scene, it doesn’t fit in the film,” Robinson explained to Variety, praising their performance as “fantastic.” But ultimately, “it didn’t work within the film that we were creating,” she said. “And when you’re trying to make something that’s bold, sometimes that happens. But they are so fantastic, so it was definitely a hard choice.”

Tung and Chavez took the development in stride, according to Robinson, who even teased a possible return to the seaside town. “Everybody was so professional about it. They’re so sweet, so lovely. They totally got it,” Robinson said. “Maybe they’ll make the sequel.”

The newest entry, in theaters July 18, follows a new group of high school pals (played by Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Sarah Pidgeon, and Tyriq Withers) who inadvertently cause a fatal car crash and make a pact to cover it up out of fear of retribution. But their actions come back to haunt them a year later when they discover that someone is in on the secret and out for blood. Original stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. reprise their roles as Julie James and Ray Bronson, whom the teens turn to for help.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

The original survivors of the 1997 Southport massacre were presumed to have been dead following their attack in 1998’s I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Robinson told Entertainment Weekly ahead of the film’s premiere that she approached those events as “outside the cannon.” She clarified, “The first movie she gets attacked through the shower, through the glass door, and in the second movie, she gets pulled under the bed. So they’re both alive and well, and what I will say is that we have continued the tradition in our film.”

Tung is best known for her breakout role as Isabel “Belly” Conklin on Prime Video’s teen romance series The Summer I Turned Pretty, based on Jenny Han’s novels of the same name. It returns for season 3 on July 16. Chavez most recently portrayed convicted killer Lyle Menendez on Ryan Murphy’s Monsters series, then reunited with the creator again on Grotesquerie.