Dwayne Johnson's Big-Screen 'Baywatch' Comedy Just Got Closer to Reality

By Borys Kit

Horrible Bosses director Seth Gordon is in negotiations to helm Baywatch, Paramount’s big-screen take on the 1990s television series about California lifeguards.

Dwayne Johnson is attached to star in the project, which has been in development since 2004. Why so long? The trickiest part of nailing any adaptation has been cracking the story and the tone.

The TV series, a major international hit in the syndicated markets, wasn’t a comedy but with stars David Hasselhoff, Pam Anderson, Yasmin Bleeth, Carmen Electra, and David Chokachi and plenty of slo-mo running on the beach, provided plenty of fodder for laughs.

Now after more than a dozen writers, the studio and producer Beau Flynn believe they are very close and hope that Gordon can bring it to the production starting line.

Insiders say the project hopes to tap a similar tonal vein as the recent 21 Jump Street movies, which took a beloved show, turned it into an action comedy, and skewered it with a fondness to make it an acclaimed hit franchise.

Gordon has it in him to do that. The director found a way to thread the tonal needle with the original Horrible Bosses and his acclaimed documentary, King of Kong. He is also a director on ABC’s well-regarded comedy The Goldbergs.

The story centers on a by-the-book and very serious lifeguard (Johnson) who is forced to team up with a young rule-flouting hothead in order to save their beach from environmental destruction at the hands of an oil tycoon.

A production in early 2016 is being eyed.

Gordon, whose last movie was Identity Thief with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, is repped by WME.