Troma Entertainment’s The Toxic Avenger has been on a road to getting rebooted. There have been people trying to get the film into production since 2010. The last we heard, Sausage Party director Conrad Vernon was attached to direct it from a script written by Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine).
Now, according to Deadline, Legendary Entertainment has acquired feature film rights to The Toxic Avenger, and the directors of the original 1984 film Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz will serve as producers on the new film. There’s no word on if Vernon or Pink are still involved though.
The original film told the story of a bullied janitor who becomes a mutant superhero after falling into a vat of toxic waste and transforms into a radioactive hero, who stands up to bullies and corruption with irreverent zeal.
Over the years, there were reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger was offered a role in the film back 2013. John Travolta was even rumored to be up for a role. Kevin Smith talked about how he was offered the opportunity to direct the reboot. He ended up jumping on board, but eventually dropped out over budget issues.
It’ll be interesting to see how this film project comes together. I enjoyed watching those old 80’s Troma horror films and The Toxic Avenger is definitely one of their more popular properties. It’ll be interesting to see what is being planned, but I hope that it at least embraces the cheesiness of the original movie.
What do you think about Legendary Pictures producing The Toxic Avenger reboot?