Dwayne Johnson Shares First Look at ‘Baywatch’ With Zac Efron
Following in the footsteps of 21 Jump Street, Dwayne Johnson’s R-rated Baywatch movie has the potential to be another great comedic riff to its classic ’90s predecessor. And while we await the inevitable news of a David Hasselhoff / Pamela Anderson cameo, Johnson has our first look at the upcoming film, featuring Zac Efron, new uniforms and a concept called “alpha balls.”
Johnson shared the first set photo over on Instagram, and as you can see, the actor and his co-star Zac Efron are sporting uniforms that are a bit different from the classic, all-red versions — they’re more clothed, for one thing:
The uniforms look more contemporary, combining blue with red to give them a distinctive style that honors the original Baywatch series while clearly establishing itself as modern — in case that R-rating wasn’t clear enough.
In addition, Johnson confirms previous reports that he’s playing the Hasselhoff role of Mitch Buchannon, while revealing that Efron is playing Matt Brody, a role originated by David Charvet. Johnson says they’ve just finished filming a scene in which Mitch schools Matt on the finer points of “alpha balls,” which probably has nothing to do with beach balls.
The pair are joined in the upcoming film by Johnson’s San Andreas co-star Alexandra Daddario, model Kelly Rohrbach, Quantico’s Priyanka Chopra and Billions star Ilfenesh Hadera. Baywatch is being directed by Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), from a script by Mark Swift and Damian Shannon (Freddy vs. Jason). Get ready to hit the beach with The Rock when Baywatch arrives on May 19, 2017.