There is likely nobody in Hollywood busier than The Rock these days. With a successful HBO series and more movies in development than anybody, it is difficult to see how the man has time to get them all done. One of his more... eclectic projects is his plan to bring Baywatch to the big screen. It’s already been announced that Rock and Zac Efron would be co-starring in the film together. That’s nice, but to be fair, David Hasselhoff had little to do with the success of the original series. The series became a global phenomenon because girls in swimsuits requires no translation. That’s ok, however as the first of the film’s female lifeguards was just announced by The Rock himself.
Posted on Instagram, Rocky has named Alexandra Daddario as the first woman in the film. She’ll be playing the role of Summer. While the original series saw a rotating cast of lifeguards through it’s 11 season syndicated run, there was a Summer on the original series as well. Summer Quinn was portrayed by Nicole Eggert between 1992 and 1996. We’re likely to get another piece of casting news soon as The Rock also teases that the role of C.J. Parker has also been cast. C.J. Parker was the role that made Pamela Anderson a household name in the 1990s. Well, that and the sex tape. We already knew that Anderson was far from excited by the remake idea. We can guess she’s not going to care too much for the fact that her role will be in the movie at all.
The casting of Alexandra Daddario appears to be a case of Rock keeping things "all in the family," as her last major screen role was as his daughter in this past summer’s San Andreas. She also played Annabeth in the two Percy Jackson fantasy films. She's certainly a lovely woman, so we fully expect that she’ll be nice to look at running in slow motion. We honestly wish there was more to say, as Daddario is a great actress, but until we know more about the film itself, we really don’t know what any of the characters will be doing. The series was pretty one dimensional. We don't feel bad making the joke, though. Daddario has the sense of humor to be willing to make it herself.
Summer is actually the first named role that has been announced, and knowing that both the Summer and C.J. roles are based on characters from the series tells us something that we didn’t know before. Because the series had such a rotating cast, few of the roles became particularly noteworthy on their own. The series was much more about the sum of its parts. Now it certainly appears that all the characters will be based on their television counterparts. This makes it likely that The Rock will be playing the role of Mitch Buchanan, as made famous by David Hasselhoff, the only actor to be in the entire series. Your guess is as good as mine as to who Zac Efron will be. Were there other guys on that show?
