Starring Peter Dinklage, the new incarnation of The Toxic Avenger sat on the proverbial shelf for quite a while. The movie went into production all the way back in 2021, and it made its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in 2023... but it has had a tough road securing distribution in large part due to its graphic content. Finally, the wait for the film is over, as the unrated cut is in theaters this weekend – but during the long wait, you can be sure that writer/director Macon Blair had a great deal of Batgirl-related anxiety.
We're now only a couple of years removed from Warner Bros. making the decision to cancel plans to release Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah's Batgirl starring Leslie Grace and Brendan Fraser, and Blair has confessed in an interview with IndieWire that the fate of that project haunted him as distribution was sought for The Toxic Avenger. He says that unceremonious end of that film's journey and the plight of the now-rescued Coyote vs. Acme fueled his fear that his movie would never see the light of day. Said the filmmaker,
Yes, [it was] certainly nerve-wracking when it’s sitting on the shelf. I can’t help but think of Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme and things like that. That’s not Legendary, because Legendary were down to rock and roll from the beginning, but there’s layers and layers above them.
Legendary Pictures produced the film along with Troma Entertainment (the studio that first introduced the Toxic Avenger franchise). Blair credits the former for never giving up on his movie, which is his directorial follow-up to 2017's I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore, but there was an extended period when he felt that the economics of the industry could result in his hard work never get distribution:
You never know who’s going to look at a spreadsheet and be like, 'This shit is more valuable as this.' But I also had a lot of faith that the Legendary people were always really pushing it, and they never took their foot off the gas.
The outrageous horror comedy thankfully got rescued. Cineverse – which made major waves last year when it theatrically released Damien Leone's ultra-violent slasher Terrifier 3 (turning it into an underground hit) – made a deal in early 2025 to distribute The Toxic Avenger. This weekend, it's playing in wide release around the country (you can check Fandango to see where it's playing near you).
The film tells the story of a lonely janitor named Winston Gooze who, after getting exposed to toxic waste, gains powers and becomes a mop-wielding vigilante called Toxic Avenger. The talented cast of the indie production includes Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon – and in the future, hopefully the happy ending of this movie's journey will provide encouragement to other filmmakers with work facing questionable fates.
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