We're still a little puzzled that Bill Hader isn't a bigger star. The actor's consistently been a highlight of "Saturday Night Live" since he joined the show in 2005, and has stolen the show in films including "Hot Rod," "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," "Tropic Thunder," "Adventureland" and "Superbad," but has never broken out to become a lead, at least in live-action (he voiced the lead in the excellent 2009 animation "Cloudy With Chance Of Meatballs," and has both "Cloudy 2" and DreamWorks' "Me And My Shadow" on the way).
But off the back of a long-overdue Emmy nomination for SNL, it looks like Hader's finally getting a lead, and in almost the strangest context you can imagine — taking on the lead in the "Baywatch" movie. The film's been in the works for a while over at Paramount, but looks to finally be moving forward with "Reno 911" co-creator, and "Night At The Museum" co-writer Robert Ben Garant directing, and Garant told The Wrap today that Hader is on board to play Hasselhoff's character Mitch Buchannon (a part that the studio were once looking at Justin Timberlake for). However, Hader's rep denied the news to The Wrap as well, so it's either too early or nothing is finalized. Or both.
Garant ,who with co-writer Thomas Lennon debuted their feature "Hell Baby" at Sundance this year, told the site that the plot involves the lifeguards discovering a meth lab on an oil rig, that Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson will cameo, and that he's already shot a trailer for the film. We never flipped for "Reno 911," and word on "Hell Baby" is pretty bad, but with Hader potentially involved (who's doing more and more and more film work, with "The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby," and another lead, opposite Kristen Wiig in "The Skeleton Twins"), we're a little more interested than we otherwise would be. Hopefully it's more "MacGruber" Than "MacHale's Navy." Filming starts in April, so we reckon we should see it in theaters in the first half of 2014.
