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I don’t know how to feel about this story. We’re starting with a “mainstream reboot of Toxic Avenger,” so the weirdness level is already at a 10 before we even get to the part where Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to star. Does having Arnold in it make it more weird or less? I have no idea.

Obviously, he’s not going to play the 98-pound lead, Melvin, but I’m not sure who that leaves. Perhaps Hans, the burly, mulatto-ass loving shopkeep.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is in talks to star in the new “Toxic Avenger,” but he’s no Toxie. He’s in negotiations for another lead role in the reimagining of the 1980s cult pic.
International Film Trust, the sales outfit launched last week by Benaroya Pictures and Miscellaneous Entertainment, is pitching  Steve Pink’s reboot of the campy 1984 action comedy in the run-up to Cannes. New project has been described as an action adventure geared toward mainstream auds. Schwarzengegger is talks with the producers to star.  “Hot Tub Time Machine” helmer Pink and Daniel C. Mitchell penned the script.
Troma Entertainment’s Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman directed the original 1984 pic, which initially flopped before gaining cult popularity through midnight screenings. “Avenger” went on to spawn three sequels, a musical and a cartoon.
Story centers around Melvin Ferd III, a 98-pound weakling who gets transformed into a superhuman crime-fighting creature after falling into a vat of toxic waste. |Variety|

I don’t… I just… …what? 90 percent of Toxic Avenger‘s appeal is that it’s so non-mainstream and wrong. If you make it “geared towards mainstream auds,” what does that leave? The mop?

“Hey, I have an idea! Let’s do Fast & Furious, but with an all-dog cast and no cars!”

“Great idea! Waiter, fetch us more cocaine!”
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According to Deadline, Johnny Depp has signed on to produce a Don Quixote movie for Disney. The big story is that Terry Gilliam doesn’t seem to be involved. See, back in 2002, Gilliam was the subject of a documentary called Lost in La Mancha, detailing Gilliam’s ultimately doomed production of a film called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam tried to get the project off the ground for years, and at one point, Johnny Depp was attached (that’s him and Gilliam in the banner image, via). Depp later dropped out, and Gilliam went on to make The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which starred Heath Ledger, who died halfway through shooting and had to be replaced by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law. Who knows what happened between Depp and Gilliam since then, or whether Gilliam eventually gave up on doing his Quixote movie, but Depp had to know how this was going to look when he signed on. YOU’RE KILLING HIM, JOHNNY OH GOD WHY!

Disney has closed a deal for an untitled pitch to be written by Steve Pink [Hot Tub Time Machine] and Jeff Morris, and produced by Infinitum Nihil’s Johnny Depp and Christi Dembrowski. The project is best described as a modern re-imagining of Don Quixote. Depp has long been intrigued with that character, and at one time was attached to the Quixote film that Terry Gilliam has tried to make.

Hard to know what to make of this, since “a modern re-imagining of Don Quixote” could mean almost anything. A hero living in the past, dedicating his life to outmoded principles of morality and groping after the women in his life through a haze of anachronous social ideals – has anyone called Aaron Sorkin? Sorkin should write himself into this, Adaptation-style.

Look, man, I just report it. According to a listing on industry site It’s On the Grid, Steve Pink and producers Akiva Goldsman and Lloyd Kaufman are producing a remake of  The Toxic Avenger starring John Travolta. Deadline first reported Pink was directing the remake back in 2010.

This is the story of Melvin, the Tromaville Health Club mop boy, who inadvertently and naively trusts the hedonistic, contemptuous and vain health club members, to the point of accidentally ending up in a vat of toxic waste. The devastating results then have a transmogrification effect, his alter ego is released, and the Toxic Avenger is born, to deadly and comical results. [BloodyDisgusting]

And who better, I ask, to play a 98-pound mop boy than a 58-year-old who looks like this:

Though I suppose he does have some experience with health clubs. ZING! (timely). And I guess that technically, the listing doesn’t say that Travolta would be playing the lead, but he’s the only actor listed, so who else would it be? Oh, but it gets worse…

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It’s always nice to report on an upcoming project that doesn’t make me want to remove my eyeballs and jam them up my own ass, and Werewolves of Reseda is just such a project.  It’s set to be directed by Steve Pink of Hot Tub Time Machine (which I saw over the weekend — what it lacked in sharp dialog and comedic timing it more than made up for in awesome story), and was written by Brian Frank, who has story credit on Hesher, which I rather enjoyed.

According to the tracking boards, the (R-rated comedy) screenplay by Brian Frank tells the story of a group of guys who gradually turn into werewolves, which somehow benefits their suburban family lives.  No more details are available at this time. [via /Film]

Sounds like another 80s-throwback screwball comedy.  Hell, I’d hit it.  But I’ve been huffing a lot of duster lately so I’m not that picky.  The only real question is whether they’ll be able to afford buying the rights to use werewolves from Stephenie Meyer’s estate.

Movieweb recently spoke with Steve Pink, who has co-writer credits on High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank and directed the upcoming Hot Tub Time Machine.  He said nothing of Cosmic Banditos, on which I believe his production company still owns the option, instead discussing his desire to *gulp* remake Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  *hits computer screen with fly swatter*

[From MovieWeb] Is there any one movie or franchise that you would like to have an opportunity to remake or re-boot?

I only have a really weird answer, which is Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. John [Cusack] and I co-directed the American stage premiere of the movie. We took an adaptation and worked on it. We revised our own adaptation of it and did the American stage production, which ran in Chicago for a couple of months when we had a theater company together. So I would like that because I love Terry Gilliam and Johnny Depp’s version but we want to do our own version. So I would love to have a shot at redoing that movie because we really love the Hunter S. Thompson esthetic. So it would be nice. I think there’s a Hunter S. Thompson movie in us too. Everyone gives it a shot but I’m convinced that we know how to do it the best. Sorry great actors Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro and great director Terry Gilliam but I still think we have something to offer in the Hunter S. Thompson cannon of work in bringing it to film, so I’d like to do that.

I’d correct their misuse of “cannon” rather than “canon“, but since Johnny Depp did pay for an actual Hunter S. Thompson cannon to fire his ashes out of, I can’t be 100% sure which they mean.  Anyway, making a Fear and Loathing movie without Hunter Thompson around to write you angry letters is like drawing a dick on the Mona Lisa’s face after she passes out. Don’t do it, Mr. Pink.  And tip your GD waitress.

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