Kevin Bacon to eat some grody scenery in the new Toxic Avenger movie
Bacon will play the bad guy in the Peter Dinklage-starring reboot
Peter Dinklage’s Toxic Avenger is now set to face off against one of the loudest, most dangerous beasts in the Hollywood ecosystem: A Kevin Bacon with nothing to lose. Fresh off the latest season of City On A Hill, Bacon is now apparently set to step right back into his Closet O’ Accents to co-star in the previously announced Toxic Avenger reboot, where he’ll play the villain, who— we’re just going to go ahead and assume—is some sort of slimy oil executive or other mega-billionaire plutocraft who gets his various glowing rocks off on polluting the environment, forcing regular folks to become toxic and avenge it.
The Toxic Avenger reboot was originally announced last year, dropping Dinklage into the squelching boots of Troma Entertainment’s most (relatively) bankable star. The original 1984 film, made for a measly $500,000, became one of the outsider studio’s most enduring symbols, a gross, puerile, but undeniably energetic take on superhero storytelling years before it became a billion-dollar business. The obvious question facing the reboot now, though, is of how much genuine Troma nastiness that writer-director Macon Blair will be able to shove into it, versus the allure of a more, for lack of a better word, “sanitized” experience. Bacon, at least, feels like a step in the right direction—the man has rarely shied away from going truly loathsome in a role, including a memorable turn in 2010's Super, where he played a charming, heartless drug dealer for Troma alum James Gunn.
Dinklage is set for the role of Toxie himself, a regular guy who becomes decidedly irregular after getting a bunch of toxic waste dumped all over him. The film will also co-star Jacob Tremblay and Taylour Paige, helping Toxi in his crusade to clean up Tromaville (or wherever this latest version of the franchise ends up being set).