The red swimsuits are about to be back on California's beaches. Fox has just dropped the full trailer for Baywatch, the reboot due in January 2027 on Amazon Prime Video, with Stephen Amell (last seen in the series Arrow) in the lead role. This new take puts the small screen's most famous lifeguards back on patrol, with an entirely fresh team and a story that leans on the legacy of the Buchannon family — but without David Hasselhoff, who's far "too old for this shit" (you know the one).
Stephen Amell picks up the Buchannon torch
In this new version, Stephen Amell plays Hobie Buchannon, the son of Mitch Buchannon rather than the man himself, played in the original series by David Hasselhoff. Now captain of the lifeguard team, Hobie is following in his old man's footsteps. But his day-to-day is about to be turned upside down by the arrival of Charlie Vale, the biological daughter he never knew he had. Played by Jessica Belkin, the young woman leaves her family home to track down her father, with one very specific idea in mind: becoming a lifeguard alongside him and carrying on the Buchannon name.
Alongside Stephen Amell, Fox has assembled a new generation of actors to take over, every one of them just as physically suited to their respective roles. We know that Hassie Harrison plays Nat, Shay Mitchell is Trina, Thaddeus LaGrone takes on Brad, Noah Beck plays Luke and Brooks Nader joins the team as Selene. Livvy Dunne will also be making her scripted debut as Grace. Nostalgics can count on the return of David Chokachi, reprising his role as Cody Madison, as well as Erika Eleniak as Shauni McClain. Which makes us think a cameo from David Charvet, still in enviable shape, isn't off the table.
The first footage promises a return to the sea rescues and high-risk situations that made the series famous. We see a light aircraft slam into the parasail of two young women, who are then dragged into the water. Plenty to keep Hobie and his whole team busy, as they face conditions far more perilous than your standard beach rescue. Naturally, this 2027 version of Baywatch won't pass up the chance to shoot all of it in slow motion, so we can admire these athletes' bodies in full flow.
A failed trip to the cinema in 2017
Remember that before this 2027 reboot, the franchise had already tried to win back its audience on the big screen with Baywatch, released in 2017 with Dwayne Johnson as Mitch Buchannon and Zac Efron as Matt Brody, a former Olympic swimming champion forced to join the squad. The film may have respected the basic setting, but it opted to build itself around a police investigation, with frequently puerile humour. At the box office, it took in roughly $177.9 million worldwide at the time, against an estimated production budget of $69 million. It made the bulk of that internationally, with more than $119 million, compared to a little over $58 million in the United States and Canada. Whether it was genuinely profitable is unclear, but one thing is certain: the critics weren't kind, and the film even picked up several Razzie Awards nominations. For this reboot, Fox wants to recapture the spirit of the series while pitting it against more modern stakes. We'll see how it all turns out in a few months...
