Yes! It is finally happening. After thirty some odd years of being a cult classic, our favorite hideously deformed monster hero of superhuman size and strength is at long last getting the Hollywood treatment. Even though there aren’t a whole lot of details to share yet, the film has a director: Conrad Vernon, one of the men who gave us the animated treat Sausage Party. Troma Entertainment founders Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz will be the executive producers.
According to Deadline Hollywood, this will be a mainstream retelling of the story of janitor Melvin who takes a tumble into a vat of toxic waste and mutates into our beloved hero. The movie is being set up at Richard Saperstein’s Storyscape Entertainment.
“Conrad Vernon is a subversive comedic genius. He is the perfect director to bring this iconoclastic franchise back to life,” Saperstein said.
“The opportunity to re-imagine a favorite cult-classic from my high school years is an honor. Toxie is an underground icon. My favorite kind!” said Vernon.
There is no news yet on who will play the titular role. At one point John Travolta was going to be a part of the movie but dropped out. Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger had a role as a secondary character, but he dropped out as well because he didn’t like the original movie. (This is some shit from someone who was in Schumacher’s Batman and Robin.) So we know the film has been greenlit, we know who is going to make it, but no idea yet of who is going to star in it.
One would hope that Vernon and the producers treat this movie with the love and care it deserves. Remakes tend to be a difficult animal to tame especially where the fans come in. I know I’ve had rather nasty things to say about remakes that didn’t go so well in the past. (I’m looking at you 1997 version of The Shining.) I really want this movie to hit the bullseye. All these years of Team Troma getting kicked around, disparaged by mainstream media and with poor Lloyd Kaufman getting roughed up and physically assaulted by big Hollywood directors on a weekly basis, we Troma-heads deserve to have our favorite hero conquer mainstream cinema and tear the intestines out of critics far and wide.
Troma, meanwhile, are also working on Toxic Twins: The Toxic Avenger part 5 which is rumored to be coming out around the same time as Vernon’s Toxic Avenger. I like that. Let the new fans discover the original series for themselves. But there has been no announced released date for either movie.
If this is successful, it might lead to more Troma films getting a big remake which does have the possibility of turning into pure caca, but I will remain positive and hopeful until I see the finished product.
