Peter Dinklage's THE TOXIC AVENGER Remake Reportedly Deemed "Unreleasable"
It's been a long time since there’s been any news regarding The Toxic Avenger remake, which stars Game of Thrones' Peter Dinklage. A Red-Band teaser trailer was released almost a year ago and not long after that, updates on the movie stopped.
Now, today, World of Reel is reporting that director Macon Blair's film is currently considered to be "unreleasable."
The site spoke to a producer of the movie who told them that The Toxic Avenger's commercial prospects are too "out there" for any sort of traditional theatrical release. This would explain why the movie still has no confirmed distributor.
Now, there has been a good amount of excitement surrounding The Toxic Avenger, and it’s even been getting good reviews at film festival screenings. The movie currently has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Here's an excerpt from their report: "Filmmaker and producer Adam Masnyk recently went on Twitter/X and confirmed that the film has been deemed 'not safe enough to market,' which he claims is why no one has stepped up to distribute it. When all is said and done, it could maybe even turn out to be 'lost media.'"
The report added: "This is factual. This is what we — I work in movie product licensing — were officially told as well regarding it."
When previously teasing the violence in the movie, the director said it would include “Itchy & Scratchy-type violence,” which is obviously in reference to The Simpsons’ heightened cat-vs-mouse comedy sketches.
He explained: “We’ve got a guy that gets his head stuffed in a car engine and it kind of grinds his head up. That was a gag I was fond of.”
The over-the-top violence in this film has been teased since it was first announced and it will have an exuberant amount of blood and gore.
While making the film, the filmmaker explained he thought that the studio wouldn’t go along with his ideas: “I kept expecting Legendary to say, ‘This is not what we want,’ but they kept agreeing to the things I pitched.”
Blair adds that when making the movie, he “embraced the silliness and trashiness, while wanting it to be an enjoyable, crowd-pleasing, rock’n’roll fun time.”
The movie is described as a “brand new reimagining of Lloyd Kaufman’s classic The Toxic Avenger,” and it’s explained that “While the original film (which premiered in 1984 – almost 40 years ago!) followed the fate of Melvin Ferd Junko III (Mitch Cohen), who goes from zero to toxic hero in a case of bullying gone awry, Macon Blair’s contemporary take follows a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength all his own.”
Dinklage stars as “downtrodden janitor Winston Gooze who, after falling into a vat of toxic waste, becomes none other than The Toxic Avenger. This timely reimagining is up to its eyeballs in environmental themes as Winston goes up against the evil forces of greed and corruption to save his son, his friends, and his community.”
The synopsis also notes, “Even as this story exists on its own terms, the spirit undoubtedly remains connected to the original. Troma fans old and new will be pleased to know that the film has been rated “R” for violence and gore – as per Troma tradition.”
The movie also stars Elijah Wood, Julia Davis, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, and Jacob Tremblay.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens to this movie. I’m curious about it and I hope that I get to watch it one day.