Johnson shared photos on set with co-stars Zac Efron and Ilfenesh Hadera. The actor also confirmed he is playing the role of Mitch Buchannon in the film, which is set to be released May 19, 2017.
Ever since Zac Efron signed on in August, it wasn’t clear who exactly he’d be playing, but it seems that, like many of his other co-stars, he’s portraying a character from the original Baywatch TV series. Matt Brody was portrayed by David Charvet on the series, appearing in 72 episodes between 1992 and 1996. Dwayne Johnson is taking over David Hoff’s Mitch Buchannon role, while Alexandra Daddario is playing Summer Quinn, originally played by Nicole Eggert, Kelly Rohrbach is taking over Pamela Anderson’s iconic C.J. Parker role and Ilfenesh Hadera is playing Mitch’s love interest Stef, originally played by Alexandra Paul.
Priyanka Chopra’s character appears to be the only one that isn’t based on the original series, with the movie’s IMDB page revealing her name is Victoria Leeds. The story follows a “by-the-book and very serious lifeguard,” played by Dwayne Johnson who joins forces with a “young rule-flouting hothead” (Zac Efron) to try and save their beach from environmental destruction by an oil tycoon. While we don’t have specific details about Priyanka Chopra’s character yet, it seems likely she’s playing the oil tycoon.
Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) is directing from a screenplay most recently written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Friday the 13th). Justin Malen (Bad Teacher 2) wrote the original draft of the script, with Dwayne Johnson also producing alongside Beau Flynn and Ivan Reitman.
