The Toxic Avenger with Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon finally gets cinema run
Starring Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood, this reboot of the classic 1980s cult superhero franchise spent years in limbo
The Toxic Avenger got stuck in the sludge.
Director Macon Blair’s reboot of the classic 1980s cult superhero franchise was shot four years ago and its festival premiere was two years ago, but for a long time, no distributors would bite.
It had stars, including Peter Dinklage as the tutu-wearing, mop-wielding, chemically altered title vigilante, and Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood as a villainous duo. But the buzz was that it was just too weirdly violent for cinemas.
“I was definitely anxious, but I never felt like it was going to be doomed,” says Blair, an actor in films including Oppenheimer and Green Room who previously directed 2017’s I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore.
Now, Toxie, as Dinklage’s character is commonly known, has emerged. Production company Legendary Entertainment struck a deal with Cineverse earlier this year to give it an unrated cinema run in the US.
Last month at Comic-Con International in San Diego, it was given a packed, rapturous panel as if it were a Marvel film.