Two years have passed since filming wrapped on writer/director Macon Blair’s remake of the Troma cult classic The Toxic Avenger (watch it HERE), and while we still don’t know when the movie is going to receive a wide release, we do know that it’s going to have its world premiere as the opening night film at Fantastic Fest, which is set to run in Austin, Texas from September 21st through the 28th. With that premiere screening about to happen, Entertainment Weekly has unveiled several images from the film – and you can check them out at the bottom of this article!
Featured in these images are Peter Dinklage, whose character Winston Gooze becomes the new Toxic Avenger; Kevin Bacon as villainous corporate overlord Bob Garbinger; Elijah Wood as Bob’s brother Fritz Garbinger, who is described as “sort of Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Danny DeVito Penguin mixed together”; a group of lunatics / musicians called the Killer Nutz, who are “a rock and roll group where their presentation is theatrical evil, like KISS or Alice Cooper, but their moonlight gig is professional assassins”; Taylour Paige as investigative reporter / vigilante detective JJ Doherty; and Jacob Tremblay as Winston’s stepson Wade.
Blair’s version of The Toxic Avenger stars Dinklage as Winston Gooze, a stereotypical weakling who works as a janitor at Garb-X health club and is diagnosed with a terminal illness that can only be cured by an expensive treatment that his greedy, power hungry employer refuses to pay for. After deciding to take matters into his own hands and rob his company, Winston falls into a pit of toxic waste and is transformed into a deformed monster that sets out to do good and get back at all the people who have wronged him.
Blair told Entertainment Weekly that Winston is “singularly unqualified to be a hero. He’s not especially brave, he’s not especially crafty, but he has his heart in the right place, and he starts taking it to the limit when he’s pushed into a corner.” The Toxic Avenger design is being kept under wraps for now, but Blair said “His look is closer to (The Toxic Avenger Part II and The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie), and in terms of color palette we drew from the cartoon actually. But it’s practical effects. You can see all the goopy little boils and stuff like that. And we definitely stayed true to some of the really iconic elements: the tutu that’s melted onto his body, the janitor’s mop as his super weapon.“
The cast of The Toxic Avenger remake also includes Julia Davis as an unspecified character, Jonny Coyne as a “shadowy criminal figure”, Sarah Niles as a “corrupt city official”, and Blair as a guy named Dennis.
The Toxic Avenger remake was filmed in Bulgaria. Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz produced with Legendary Entertainment. The film has received an R rating for “strong violence and gore, language throughout, sexual references and brief graphic nudity“ – and the gore includes a moment that has been referred to as “the butt guts scene“.
Are you looking forward to The Toxic Avenger remake? What do you think of these images? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
There aren’t many filmmakers I would trust with a Toxie remake, but I think we’re in very good hands with Macon Blair.