Joining Salem’s Lot on the list of movies that went missing is The Toxic Avenger. Peter Dinklage stars as the terminally ill janitor who falls into a pit of toxic waste and is transformed into a deformed monster out for revenge. According to the blurb:
“Set in a fantasy world following Winston, a stereotypical weakling who works as a janitor at Garb-X health club and is diagnosed with a terminal illness that can only be cured by an expensive treatment that his greedy, power hungry employer refuses to pay for. After deciding to take matters into his own hands and rob his company, Winston falls into a pit of toxic waste and is transformed into a deformed monster that sets out to do good and get back at all the people who have wronged him.”
Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Julia Davis, Jonny Coyne, Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon co-star.
So where is it? The Toxic Avenger was made in 2021. In 2023 there was a teaser released and then the movie premiered as the opening film of Fantastic Fest on September 21, 2023.
The film also played at Beyond Fest on September 30, 2023, before having its international debut at the 56th Sitges Film Festival in October 2023.
From these screenings, the movie has garnered a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes from a decent number of reviews. So it doesn’t appear to be a stinker.
The issue appears to be at Legendary Pictures, where they don’t seem to be able to create a strategy to effectively market the movie. So it is trapped in limbo for now. In an interview to promote The Thicket, Dinklage spoke to ComicBook.com about what is happening with The Toxic Avenger and he didn’t know:
“I’m not a producer on it. I don’t know. I do want it to get out there into the world because it was a really big hit at Fantastic Fest in Austin, and Macon Blair, the writer/director who is also in The Thicket … He’s incredible. He’s one of my favorite people and favorite artists.”
The movie is said to be gory, charming, and “agreeably stupid” with a hero you root for. The issue appears to be finding the right audience and appropriate marketing spend to get it in front of them.