The Toxic Avenger remake was offered to Kevin Smith

A remake of the classic Troma Entertainment film THE TOXIC AVENGER has been in the works for a long time, with producers first acquiring the remake rights back in early 2010. By the end of that year, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE director Steve Pink had been hired to write and direct a family friendly, PG-13 action comedy take on Troma's very R-rated original, which had the following synopsis: 

What's faster than a spreading germ… more powerful than Mr. Clean… and more lethal than nuclear waste? Is it a floorcleaner? Is it a waste site? No… it is the TOXIC AVENGER, the first super hero from New Jersey! He french fries his foes… dry cleans the dastardly.

Watch out, bad guys! Truth, Justice, and The American Way is on a righteous rampage – it's Melvin, alias THE TOXIC AVENGER, and he's gonna getcha!

Transformed from wimp to warrior by a dip in a chemical pool, Melvin ("Tox" to his friends) battles corruption and crime in a small American town. But can even an industrial-strength super hero survive a showdown against an army of tanks and troops? Thrill to the action, adventure and yes, romance, of this hilarious tongue-in-cheek hit.

WARNING: Explosively funny. May cause irritation to the excessively serious.

Pink wrote the screenplay with Daniel C. Mitchell, their story centered on 

an average teen who joins an environmental club to impress his crush. While doing some investigating at a waste plant, he is thrown into a tub of waste and transforms into a radioactive hero.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was offered a role in 2013, but it wasn't clear if he would play 

the radioactive hero transformed; the crush's stepfather, who owns the plant and is ignoring the mutant creatures he is complicit in creating; or the plant's head of security, the movie's heavy. … Or one more possibility: Floyd Kaufman. The character is a nod to Lloyd Kaufman, the influential low-budget film producer and founder of Troma, the company behind the original. Floyd Kaufman is an exterminator at the plant.

At another point, John Travolta was rumored to be up for a role.

Last year, it was announced that Steve Pink was out as director, with SAUSAGE PARTY's Conrad Vernon coming on board to direct and Archer's Mike Arnold and Chris Poole performing a rewrite of Pink and Mitchell's script.

While we wait to see whether or not the remake is going to go into production any time soon, and whether or not Vernon will be still be at the helm when it does, RED STATE / TUSK / YOGA HOSERS director Kevin Smith has revealed that he was offered the TOXIC AVENGER gig at some point in recent years.

Smith mentioned this on a recent episode of his podcast Fatman on Batman, which he co-hosts with Marc Bernardin. When asked a question about receiving notes from producers or executives, Smith replied, 

I don't really deal in that world that much anymore, I don't have to sit with people that are corporate and have interests to protect, like, I'm in the walrus movie phase of my career. The last thing, and it wasn't even a big deal, it wasn't like 'I'm outraged!'… somebody asked me, 'Hey man, we've got THE TOXIC AVENGER and we're gonna remake it, do a reboot, and hey, you're from Jersey.' And you know, I always kind of dug what Lloyd Kaufman and the Troma people do, it was right in Jersey, I remember seeing them on the news all the time – 'Hollywood, motion pictures in New Jersey? Right here at Troma!' And TOXIC AVENGER was insanely well known. So I always respected the Troma world and Toxie franchise. So I was like, all right, I'll go down the rabbit hole a bit and see what's what. 

And we parted ways fundamentally on the budget, because I was just like, 'Part of the charm of the TOXIC AVENGER is that it was made for two nickels. If you're gonna do it again, don't spend a lot of money.' But they were like, 'No no no, it's a 35 million dollar movie.' And I was like, 'It's a f*ckin' remake of THE TOXIC AVENGER, the guy in a tutu with a bad makeup job, what are we gonna spend all the money on?' So right then and there, I'm clearly not on the same page. In my head, if I need to see a TOXIC AVENGER remake, it should be done in the spirit of the original. Instead, they were literally trying to start a franchise, Marvel-ize it and stuff like that. And I'm like, 'I don't know if you guys saw that movie.' So I just quietly stepped away. I understand what they were going for, but I would never want to see that version of the movie. It would be like somebody doing a 35 million dollar version of CLERKS. Why would you bother?"

I'll be hoping for the best if the remake does get made, but the idea of a family friendly TOXIC AVENGER movie that Arnold Schwarzenegger or John Travola would even consider going near is kind of tough for me to wrap my head around, too.