Back in 2010, Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink was going to direct a remake of The Toxic Avenger. In 2012 John Travolta was rumored to be up for a role, then in 2013 Arnold Schwarzenegger was in talks to star. In 2016, it was Sausage Party director Conrad Vernon being brought in to helm. The point being, we’ve been hearing about the remake for a while.

This past December Legendary Entertainment acquired the feature film rights to The Toxic Avenger and made it a priority. Now they’ve found the latest name to attempt to make the movie a reality, as Macon Blair has been hired to write and direct what’s now being called a reboot.

Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four
Official Website
Directed by Marty Langford
Starring Roger Corman, Oley Sassoon, and Chris Gore
Distributor: Uncork’d Entertainment
Not Rated | 85 minutes
Release Date: October 11, 2016 (VOD) | December 20, 2016 (DVD)

In 1986, German film producer Bernd Eichinger (The Neverending Story) purchased the motion picture rights to Marvel Comics’ first family of bickering cosmic superheroes, the Fantastic Four. Eichinger envisioned making a classy, big-budget adventure with funding from a major studio and the latest in cutting edge visual effects, but no studio was interested. He had until New Year’s Eve 1992 to get the film into production or his rights would revert back to Marvel.

Rewind This!
Directed by Josh Johnson
Starring Frank Henenlotter, Drew McWeeny, and Charles Band
FilmBuff
Release Date: August 27, 2013
Available on iTunes
Official Site

Videotapes once played a huge role in my life. I grew up in a family that never had much money to splurge on weekend excursions to the local cinema, except on rare occasions. Therefore, we were reliant on home video to keep us up to date on the most popular movie releases of the day. In the beginning we had to not only rent the videos, but also the VCR to play them, and a neighborhood store called Video Circus carried the early model “top loaders” that were big enough to build the pyramids of Egypt with. For years my younger siblings and I were fixated on certain movies and every time my mother offered to rent us a movie for the weekend, we were always crowing for Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol or The Princess Bride. As I got older, I started to build my own collection of films on tape; my library officially kicked off on Christmas Day 1993 when my late grandmother Betty gifted me Batman Returns, Beetlejuice, and The Rocketeer.

Once I got my first job and suddenly felt the rush of having real money in my pocket for once, I purchased more tapes and even my first VCR, which I picked up dirt cheap at a thrift store. When I was 20, I started working for a Tower Records and Video in my hometown of Richmond, Virginia and took great advantage of an amazing employee discount to build my movie collection into a literal library of cinema. Having a VCR and access to digital cable movie channels precipitated the purchase of blank video tapes that could three to four movies depending on their length and how much storage space was on each tape. Within a few years, I had more movies than I had time to watch them.

“Hasta la vista, Toxie!”

Variety is reporting that Arnold Schwarzenegger is in talks to star in a remake of Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s 1984 cult classic, The Toxic Avenger.

For those unfamiliar with Troma Entertainment’s slice of low-budget sleaze-cheese, The Toxic Avenger tells the story of Melvin Ferd III, a 98-pound weakling who works as a janitor at a health club in Tromaville, New Jersey. A gang of beefcake bullies toss the denim-clad poindexter into a drum of toxic waste, transforming him into a hideously deformed monster of superhuman size and strength: the Toxic Avenger!

This year Troma Films, purveyors of some of the most unhinged B-movies to melt the innards of many a VCR, is preparing to unleash its biggest movie made yet, a depraved epic bound to offend every special interest group on Earth and maybe even a few on distant planets that is so huge it has to be split into two parts, Kill Bill style. Return to Nuke ‘Em High Vol. I & II, the fourth movie in the studio’s other most successful franchise that kicked off in 1986 and has become one of many bona fide cult classics to endure throughout the years, is coming to theaters soon and bringing a star-studded cast (for a Troma movie) with it.

You can check out a poster and teaser trailer for the movie here below.

Set to appear in Return are such Troma mainstays as Debbie Rochon, porn movie legend Ron Jeremy, and hard rock god Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead (the photo above shows him in the film as President Lemmy). Mark Neveldine, the co-director of the Crank movies, Gamer, and most recently Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, is looking to appear in this latest Troma-tic endeavor. Studio head Lloyd Kaufman, who has directed many of Troma’s best-known movies, returns to serve as director, and judging by the trailer will also make his customary cameo bow.