Way back in October of last year, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson signed on to star in a proposed "Baywatch" movie based on the popular 1990s television series. Since that announcement, there has been virtually no news on the project whatsoever.
Until now.
The Hollywood Reporter recently announced that Seth Gordon ("Identity Thief") is in negotiations to direct. If he officially signs on, he'll be working from a script written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift ("Fredy vs. Jason," "Friday The 13th").
According to THR's report, Johnson will star as a lifeguard who is forced to partner with a "young rule-flouting hothead" so that he can save his beach from an oil tycoon that wants to destroy it for business purposes (please hold all laughter until the end of the article).
This is not the first attempt to turn the slow-motion, bouncy TV series into a big screen bonanza. The soap-like crime drama has been approached by several writers since the show went off the air in 2001. In that time, "Baywatch" has been lampooned in every form of pop culture. As a result, it's only natural that Hollywood would want to turn the project into an action comedy. Given Gordon's rap sheet - "Horrible Bosses," "Modern Family," "Community" - he seems to be a quality candidate to spearhead this adaptation. All he needs to do is give the project the "21 Jump Street" treatment and, voila, he's got a successful hit on your hands.
Paramount is expected to begin filming in the early months of 2016 and release the film during the summer 2017 season.
