Steve Pink, the director of Accepted and Hot Tub Time Machine, will co-write and direct the remake of Toxic Avenger, revamping Troma’s classic gross-out superhero as an environmentally-conscious crusader in an action-comedy.
The original film features a hapless mop boy who is teased and ridiculed by a gang of jocks and ends up falling into a vat of toxic waste. He is transformed into a hugely muscular, horribly deformed superhero who fights crime — more often than not with ultra-violent methods.
Pink will co-write with Daniel C. Mitchell. The film will be produced by Akiva Goldsman, Richard Saperstein and Charlie Corwin. Plans are to make the film a family-friendly PG-13 comedy similar to The Mask.
The whole project sounds much more similar to the Toxic Crusaders cartoon of the ’90s (which saw the Toxic Avenger turned into a Saturday morning cartoon) than the original movies. I’d much rather see a hard-R version of the film directed by James Gunn but, as a Troma junkie, I’ll take my Toxie where I can get it.
