Peter Dinklage Is Going To Headline A Remake Of The Horror-Camp Classic ‘The Toxic Avenger’

You know who doesn’t get enough starring roles? Peter Dinklage. He’s always been one of the best things about any project he’s involved with, from Game of Thrones to The Station Agent to his blistering screen debut, the indie Living in Oblivion, in which he ruthlessly attacked lazy filmmakers who think dwarfism is in itself surreal. And while he gets his share of co-lead efforts, he rarely has the main role to himself.

That, finally, is about to change: As per Deadline, Dinklage has been cast in the lead in a long-in-the-works remake of The Toxic Avenger, the beloved horror-camp-comedy about a dweeb who becomes a roided-up mutant superhero after tumbling into toxic waste. The 1984 original — a staple of USA’s classic trash movie show Up All Night — yielded three sequels, plus a short-lived TV show, a musical, and a Sega Genesis video game.

All of the Toxic Avenger films were made by the proudly low-budget camp horror maestros at Troma Entertainment, and though the company’s legendary co-founder Lloyd Kaufman is involved with the reboot, it’s not clear how close they’ll stick to the original run’s tone. The film’s director is Macon Blair, who appeared in Jeremy Saulnier’s wincingly dark thrillers Blue Ruin and Green Room before embarking on his directorial debut, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, starring Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood. That film mixed mordant, everyday humor with gasp-inducing shocks, so it should be interesting to see what blend he brings to good ol’ Toxie.

(Via Deadline)