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‘The Toxic Avenger’ First Look Reveal Elijah Wood’s Penguin-esque Villain

The first look images to The Toxic Avenger has been released, revealing the star-studded cast as their respective characters including Peter Dinklage as Winston Gooze, Elijah Wood as Fritz Garbinger and Kevin Bacon as Bigwig.

Winston Gooze is a depressed, mild-mannered janitor who works at a health club. When diagnosed with a terminal illness, Gooze attempts to rob his employer but ends up falling into a vat of radioactive waste and turns into the monstrous hero we know as the Toxic Avenger. In the first look, Dinklage’s Toxic Avenger is seen wearing an eye mask and a pink tutu.

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Lord of the Rings star Wood plays villain Fritz Garbinger. In the first look, Fritz is seen with blackened teeth, panda eyes, and long tendrils of hair sprouting from bald head. According to writer-director Macon Blair, Wood’s Fritz is “sort of Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Danny DeVito’s Penguin mixed together.”

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“The look came about by discussions I had with our designers and with Elijah himself,” Blair continues. “I wanted it to feel like a Peter Sellers type of performance where he just goes invisible. The idea is that you forget that it’s the Elijah that you know from Lord of the Rings or anything else.”

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The first look also revealed Bob Garbinger, a corporate overlord and brother of Wood’s Fritz. Bob is described as “the mold of Lex Luthor, where they have all this money and resources at their disposal, but he’s just kind of a disaster”.

toxic avenger

The photos also reveal a “gang of dangerous lunatics” known as Killer Nutz , Taylor Paige (Zola) as JJ Doherty and The Little Mermaids Jacob Tremblay as Gooze’s stepson Wade.

The original Toxic Avenger movie spawned three sequels and an animated series called The Toxic Crusaders. The franchise later spawned a toy line and video games in the 1990s.

The horror-comedy also stars Sarah Niles, Julia Davis and Julian Kostov.

The Toxic Avenger is set to premiere on 21 September.