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Hollywood bets on past success, which is why Kevin Williamson couldn’t sell his screenplay I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER until his new project, SCREAM, was a hit.

SUMMER, the R rated 1997 slasher movie directed by Jim Gillespie (EYE SEE YOU) and written by Williamson, stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe & Freddie Prinze Jr. It opened via Columbia Pictures Oct. 17, 1997 on a budget of $17M and did $125.6M worldwide.

Williamson’s screenplay was loosely based on a 1973 Lois Duncan novel. Although the book wasn’t a slasher tale, it did have a madman terrorizing guilty teens — none of whom die in print.

Williamson wrote SUMMER before writing the 1996 horror classic SCREAM. But it wasn’t until SCREAM, directed by Wes Craven (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) for Miramax’s Dimension Films, exploded at the boxoffice — with $173M globally — that Sony Pictures/Columbia snapped up SUMMER.

Williamson became involved with SUMMER when producer Erik Feig asked him to adapt Duncan’s novel. Feig brought the project to Mandalay Entertainment, the powerhouse production company headed by Peter Guber, who’d co-chaired Sony Pictures with Jon Peters.

Gillespie didn’t want to direct a horror film, but SUMMER appealed to him,  he said, because “It had that core dilemma of, ‘What would I do if this happened to me?’ that spoke to a young audience that was about to embark on their adult life.” SUMMER’s storyline involved four young adults (Julie, Helen, Barry & Ray), who make all the wrong choices when faced with a life changing crisis.

After SUMMER got a green light from Columbia, its producers decided to cast beautiful, but likable actors. Jennifer Love Hewitt , best known for TV’s  PARTY OF FIVE, was cast as Julie because she projected vulnerability. Sarah Michelle Gellar, famous for TV’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, became Helen. “I wanted an actress that had a warmth to her,” Gillespie observed, “but could still come off as being a bitch.”

Barry, who was written as a big imposing guy, was cast with the shorter Ryan Phillippe after his overwhelming audition. Freddie Prinze Jr. was hired for Ray because he had Ray’s “everyman” image.

Columbia expected SUMMER to sizzle at the boxoffice. With Williamson in mind, the studio’s ads said SUMMER was “From the creator of SCREAM.” Miramax sued Columbia for misleading advertising that seemed to say SCREAM’s Wes Craven was the creator of SUMMER.

Miramax got a federal judge to issue an injunction stopping Columbia from running its “creator” ads, but that wasn’t until a week after SUMMER had opened. In March 1998, Miramax won its lawsuit against Columbia, but by then, SUMMER’s global success was already boxoffice history.