First Look at Rebooted Toxic Avenger Gives Us a Twisted Peter Dinklage and Elijah Wood

If you’re not a child of the ’80s, the words Toxic and Avenger put together might seem like they’re referencing some sort of scandal with a Marvel Cinematic Universe actor. However, they are in fact the title of one of the strangest cult classics out there: The Toxic Avenger. The original film, from schlock studio Troma, became a big hit back in 1984, spawning many sequels, a comic books, a Saturday morning cartoon, and even a sidescrolling beat-em-up video game (and a much-delayed sequel to that game). And now, nearly forty years later, it’s spawned a reboot starring big-name actors like Peter Dinklage, Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon.

Our first look at this reboot just dropped thanks to Entertainment Weekly. The new movie is still coming from Troma, which is still pumping out low-budget fare, but this time around, they’ve got Legendary Entertainment onboard. The relatively big-budget film is a full reboot from writer/director Macon Blair that stars Dinklage as Winston Gooze, a janitor at a chemical factory who is exposed to toxic waste and turned into the superhero the Toxic Avenger. Wood and Bacon play the villains of the piece, taking on the role of two evil industrialists up to no good. While Bacon looks like himself but in fancy bath robes, Wood has a look that’s clearly pulling from a few evil villain sources including, according to Blair, Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Danny DeVito’s iconic Penguin from Batman.

Blair appears to be a good choice to bring Toxie to the mainstream as he grew up with the films. “My group of friends were starting to make our own movies on VHS. Everything we did was a rip-off of Monty Python and early Troma movies,” he said.

Also starring in the film, and in the images below, are Taylour Paige as JJ Doherty, an investigative reporter, and Jacob Tremblay as Winston’s stepson Wade. What we don’t get to see in these images is an actual look at Dinklage as the Toxic Avenger. There’s a silhouette that shows off a bit of the look and the iconic mop weapon, but nothing very clear as to what he’ll look like in the movie. We’ll probably have to wait for the film’s first trailer to get a good look at our mutated hero. We do, though, get to see Dinklage in a tutu, part of Toxie’s outfit in the original films, so that’s something.

The Toxic Avenger will premiere at Fantastic Fest this week but no theatrical release date has been set. You can see the first look images for the Toxic Avenger, which come from Entertainment Weekly, below.