In September of 2023, audiences were introduced to a trailer of the long-awaited reboot of the iconic Troma character The Toxic Avenger, which would bring Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage as the new iteration of Troma’s mascot character. Written and directed by Macon Blair, the film was released in film festivals to quite the rave as it currently holds a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Nearly a year later and nothing has evolved…until last week. World of Reel contacted one of the producers over at Legendary Pictures, who made the film and well, needless to say, was given a very shocking answer to why the film, with an ensemble cast including Elijah Wood, Kevin Bacon, and Jacob Tremblay, has yet to see the light of day to wider audiences.

The film has been deemed “unreleasable” and “not safe enough to market” was the answer. This has been leading to fans and filmmakers such as Joe Lynch (who had seen the new film and raved about it) to give their two cents and bring the hashtag #UnleashToxie to social media.

Did Legendary realize what they were trying to achieve to reboot a property like The Toxic Avenger, known for its insane violent content over the course of four films from 1984-2000? Or were they thinking they could market it in the same vein as the cartoon series The Toxic Crusaders. Even Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman was impressed with Blair’s take on the film that he at one point deemed it “better” than his original film.

So what are the options now? Well, for one, we can only hope Legendary doesn’t pull a David Zaslav and shelf the film like he did with the Batgirl adaptation permanently. The producer who confirmed the film “not safe enough to market” did say if a distributor does pick it up, there’s a chance it could go to streaming or On Demand.

A few distributors can come to mind when hearing this. First, there’s Cineverse and Bloody Disgusting. They released in 2022 the now classic sequel Terrifier 2, a very graphically violent horror film, in select theaters as well as Digital and On Demand when it was released. That could be an option there. Another could be Tubi, the FOX-owned free service that has quite the catalog of horror originals as well as a back catalog of insane horror films. Finally, why not bring the film to who else? Troma. After all, the character is their baby (no pun intended) and they can distribute the new film.

As of now, the fate of the Toxic Avenger reboot is up in the air. Only two words can sum up this news: Fingers crossed…maybe until they break! (Just kidding)