Elijah Wood and Julia Davis Join Peter Dinklage in ‘Toxic Avenger’ Reboot

Elijah Wood and Julia Davis are the latest to join Legendary’s new Toxic Avenger movie, which is set to star Peter Dinklage as the  mutant superhero. The film is a reboot of ultra-low-budget franchise that began as a 1984 film and inexplicably spawned multiple sequels, an animated series, a comic, and a stage musical.

Less than a week after it was announced that Kevin Bacon would be playing the villain of The Toxic Avenger, the reboot from Legendary starring Dinklage in the title role, Deadline reports that Elijah Wood and Julia Davis have both joined the cast. They’ll be joining an ensemble that includes Jacob Tremblay and Taylour Paige, all of whom seem like perfectly nice non-toxic people.

The Illuminerdi first reported Wood’s involvement, though they reported that he would be playing the villain — which is the role Bacon will be taking on. It’s not confirmed who Wood and Davis will be playing. But the pair of them certainly lend the film wacky indie cred — Wood, despite breaking out in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has earned a reputation for starring in quirky indie comedies and horror flicks; while Davis is the creator and star of the BAFTA-winning comedy series Sally4Ever for Sky Atlantic and HBO. Davis also won a BAFTA for writing Hunderby, in which she also starred, and is a well-known voice in U.K. comedy. Their involvement signals a more tongue-in-cheek comedic approach to Toxic Avenger than the trashy original film.

What You Need to Know About The Toxic Avenger

Described as a “contemporary reimagining” of the 1984 low-budget hit that is “steeped in environmental themes and subverts the superhero genre in the vein of Deadpool,” The Toxic Avenger follows “a struggling everyman who, when pushed into a vat of toxic waste, is transformed into a mutant freak who must go from shunned outcast to underdog hero as he races to save his son, his friends, and his community from the forces of corruption and greed,” per Deadline.

Mitch Cohen played the title character in the first film, which was a trashy B-movie that has become widely embraced as a cult classic. It would spawn sequels The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, and Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, and even a stage musical production, children’s cartoon TV series, and a Marvel comic.

As a result, Hollywood has been trying to jumpstart the franchise for more than 10 years now, with people like Akiva Goldsman, Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink, John Travolta, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sausage Party director Conrad Vernon, and Kevin Smith attached at various points since 2010.

Dinklage will play the lead role in the reboot, with Jacob Tremblay (Good Boys, Room) and Taylour Paige (Zola, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) rounding out the rest of the current cast. Production is set to begin later this month in Bulgaria. Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, who directed the original movie for Troma Entertainment, are on board this version as producers.

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