Elijah Woods Channels Batman Villain For Toxic Avenger Movie First Look

The reimagining of the 1984 horror-comedy The Toxic Avenger is about to make its world premiere at Austin’s Fantastic Fest this week, starring Peter Dinklage as an all-new Toxie. The film comes from writer/director Macon Blair, who was most recently seen in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. While we don’t have a full reveal of Dinklage’s radioactive visage, we do have our first look at Elijah Wood as the vile and bizarre, Fritz Garbinger.

Talking to Entertainment Weekly Blair explains that Wood’s appearance in the film is “sort of Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Danny DeVito Penguin mixed together.”

Blair added that the design came from discussions with Wood himself as well as the film’s designers. “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.”

Garbinger is a brand-new villain introduced in this movie and isn’t based on a previous character from the Tromaverse. Blair described the ghoulish-looking figure as “the runt of the family, whereas his older brother [Kevin Bacon] is this golden god. So, that’s their dynamic,” Blair adds. “He’s kind of a henchman at this corrupt company.”

Fritz is joined by his personal gang of dangerous lunatics known as Killer Nutz, who are murderous musicians. Blair said that idea just seemed kind of funny to him “if we had a rock and roll group, where their presentation is theatrical evil, like KISS or Alice Cooper, but their moonlight gig is professional assassins,” the director said. “So, when they talk about how dangerous and evil they are, they actually are dangerous and evil.”

Joining Dinklage, Wood, and Bacon are Jacob Tremblay (The Little Mermaid), Taylour Paige (Zola), Sarah Niles (I May Destroy You), Julia Davis (Sing 2), and Julian Kostov (Netflix’s Shadow and Bone). There is no release date yet announced.