What can we expect from Paramount’s Baywatch film? Well, according to Dwayne Johnson, the high-profile feature film will boast an R rating and enough baby oil to keep Luke Hobbs up at night, not to mention a 21 Jump Street-style twist on the source material.
Adding to the pre-production buzz, We Are Your Friends star Zac Efron teased that the creative team are gunning to create a “badass” interpretation of the camp 90s television series while still “keeping the integrity” of what made the Californian Lifeguards so endearing in the first place. During an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, here’s what Efron had to share on the nascent adaptation.
“We want to make it badass,” he told Seth Meyers on Tuesday’s Late Night. “That’s what Dwayne [Johnson] wants — he’s so cool, he’s like the coolest dude in the world. I’m gonna have to keep up with that guy!”
Part buddy cop movie, part action film, Baywatch will have Dwayne Johnson’s no-nonsense, by-the-book protagonist partner with Zac Efron’s younger and care-free daredevil in order to foil plans laid out by an oil tycoon that would bring ruination to their precious stretch of sand. What really gives us hope about the studio’s modern take, though, is the fact that the production is citing 21 Jump Street as a source of inspiration, and if Johnson and Efron can muster a fraction of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum’s chemistry, Paramount’s actioner could prove the naysayers wrong when production gets underway next year.
Because admittedly, Baywatch stepping in front of the cameras has been a long time coming, after lingering on the brink of development hell for years. During this time, multiple writers came and went, though it’s understood the most recent draft was penned by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift.
Production is finally set to get underway on Paramount’s long-gestating Baywatch film in early 2016.
