At the press day for the horror comedy Hell Baby, from writer/directors Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant (Reno 911!), Collider got the opportunity to chat with the hilarious pair. While we will post what they had to say about that film, closer to its September 6th theatrical release, we did want to share what they had to say about the Baywatch movie that they’ve written, and that Garant plans to direct.
During the interview, they talked about how they went in for a general meeting at Paramount and ended up writing the Baywatch: Red Tide script, that they’d like to make a bunch of movies, how it’s basically Reno 911! with sexy people, that it’s a Point Break-type action-comedy, and that they did reference some of the crazy storylines from the TV show. Check out what they had to say after the jump.
Collider: Are you guys really doing a Baywatch movie?
THOMAS LENNON: Yes, we wrote it for Paramount.
ROBERT BEN GARANT: The script is done.
LENNON: I don’t think we’re supposed to say who’s in it. There are rumors that a big movie star wants to be in it, which is nice.
GARANT: It’s good. It’s funny. It’s basically Reno 911! with sexy people.
LENNON: Yeah, with big, buff, sexy people. It’s called Baywatch: Red Tide, which is to clarify that we’re going to make, hopefully, eight or nine Baywatch movies. One for every year that Baywatch was on the air.
Was that something you guys wanted to do, or did someone ask you to do it?
GARANT: We went to a general meeting at Paramount, and they had this bulletin board of all the different things that are in development. And down at the bottom of the board, upside down, was a corner that said, “Baywatch?”
LENNON: We were like, “That’s not brain surgery. How hard could it be to write a Baywatch movie? Half of that movie is in slow motion, of people jogging with music.” So, yes, we did write it.
Are you going to be giving any nods to the TV show?
GARANT: We watched a bunch of the show, and I was unaware. The plot of one of the episodes in the first season is that there’s a giant squid stealing people’s surfboards. That’s a real episode.
LENNON: It’s called “Tentacles Pt. 1" and “Tentacles Pt. 2.” It’s an insane series! They introduced the idea of a ghost in the second season.
GARANT: It’s “Coronado Del Soul.” Nicole Eggert was a ghost. It’s The Shining in swimsuits, with Nicole Eggert.
LENNON: It’s some of the weirdest plots that you’ve ever seen, in your entire life. We tried to get a little bit of that into the script. It’s also a bit action comedy.
GARANT: It’s Point Break-y.
LENNON: They do talk about the surfboard-stealing squid, and Summer has a ghost of herself that she ran into. Some of those references are in the final script.
