As the new Mitch Buchannon, Dwayne Johnson has assumed some of the responsibility for casting announcements for the Baywatch movie that’s being made in swim-trunked earnest by Paramount. He’s already sounded off via his megaphone, i.e., Instagram account, on the casting of Alexandra Daddario and Kelly Rohrbach, who will assume the red suits and roles played by Nicole Eggert and Pamela Anderson in the original series. And Zac Efron, who’s grown increasingly comfortable in this shirtless milieu, will also help rescue bad swimmers as Hannibal Buress looks on and cracks wise.
Now Johnson and Entertainment Weekly have revealed that Quantico’s Priyanka Chopra has been cast as the antagonist to this hard-bodied brain trust. Chopra will play Victoria Leeds, a character we and EW know nothing about other than that she’s the bad guy/girl. The actress was rumored to be joining the film back in January, when the role was also described as the “villain” of the piece, which presumably means she’ll be a rich developer who wants to pave over their beach paradise and put up a Whole Foods (now with tattoo parlor).
Johnson personally welcomed Chopra to the “dysfunctional family” of lifeguards who seem doomed to patrol a beach made of quicksand that slows down their running and rescuing efforts. The long-gestating film is scheduled for release on May 19, 2017.