Baywatch

It’s the holiday season, which means cozying up with family to It’s a Wonderful Life for the umpteenth year in a row, or giving and receiving presents from loved ones, or trawling the internet looking for “Happy Holidays!” tweets from your favorite Hollywood celebrities. Yesterday, the cast of the new Baywatch movie, all decked out in seasonally appropriate Santa hats and mistletoe accessories, posted a special Christmas message to their fans.

It has become increasingly apparent that the best thing a revival of a tired ‘80s pop-culture artifact can be is the neo-21 Jump Street, judging by the new trailer for the Dwayne Johnson-fronted Baywatch. The parallels are striking: we’ve got the central odd couple in the Rock’s bombastic beach hero and Zac Efron’s hard-partying young gun, light meta touches about “reviving the brand,” some playful winks to the core goofiness of the source material (the “why does she always look like she’s running in slow motion?” line may be the best of the clip), even a scene where our heroes are dressed down by a furious black cop. You may call it derivative, but I call it a good start.

Who watches the Baywatchmen? All of us, okay. We are all going to be watching the Baywatch movie, because, still, none of us can believe it actually exists. It must be seen. It must be experienced. And if you’re just dying to know what we’re all in for, look no further than this teaser Dwayne Johnson posted on his Twitter today, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s first trailer.

2016 has already been a bastard of a year: beloved public figures died, Nazis became a thing again, America began its slow skid into fascism, and Bones got cancelled. When do the hits stop coming? Is there no respite from the barrage of tragedies that this monstrous year has heaped upon us? No, no there is not. Because throughout the seemingly unending cluster-F-word of 2016, one light on the horizon has held us up, both as a nation and as a human species. From indignity to indignity, we’ve always been able to pin our hopes on the glorious day of May 19, 2017 — known to you and I, of course, as the release date for the Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson-led reboot of beloved ‘90s lifeguard soap opera Baywatch. But even after this year’s parade of tragedies, [Don LaFontaine voice] there is one tragedy more.

If you are going to make a Baywatch movie — even one that’s a tongue-in-cheek satire of the original — there’s a few things you’ve got to have. You need men and women in red bathing suits. You need people running on the beach in slow motion. You need that magnificent theme song. You need at least one reference to Baywatch Nights. And you need David Hasslehoff and Pamela Anderson.

It’s not enough to inspire #SquadGoals, but at least the cast of Baywatch looks like they’re having a blast in the latest photo update from Dwayne Johnson. The actor shows off his new squad, and sure, this could be a photo from the Baywatch set — or it could be the centerfold in a Macy’s summer catalogue. Baywatch Squadgate 2016, you be the judge

You can’t have a Baywatch movie without David Hasselhoff. Just a few weeks ago, Dwayne Johnson confirmed what we all assumed by announcing that the star of the original series would be joining the upcoming film, and now we have photographic evidence. While we wait to find out if his equally iconic co-star Pamela Anderson will also be making an appearance in the Baywatch movie, enjoy this set of photos featuring the Hoff and his new pals.

Alexandra Daddario was the first female actor to join Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron’s R-rated Baywatch shenanigans, but she’s been curiously absent from Johnson’s growing collection of set photos on Instagram. Don’t worry, San Andreas fans (all four of you), Daddario has officially suited up and reunited with her co-star for the upcoming film based on the classic ’90s series.

Baywatch doesn’t hit theaters until next summer, so it’s going to be quite a while before we see the first trailer or official photos. Thankfully, Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron are pretty fond of Instagram, and the pair have been sharing lots of images from the set, including our first looks at co-stars Kelly Rohrbach, Priyanka Chopra and Ilfenesh Hadera. If nothing else, the R-rated comedy has a diverse cast and they all look like they’re having a blast.

David Hasselhoff is famous for many things, not all of them good: for holding the Guinness World Record for the highest reverse bungee jump (seriously), for his extended stint as a man willing to have protracted conversations with a car on Knight Rider, for the painful footage of his impotent attempt to consume a cheeseburger while rolling around on the floor in an alcoholic stupor, but most of al