Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink will helm the remake of The Toxic Avenger, which he’ll write with Daniel C. Mitchell. Deadline revealed last April that remake rights to the Troma Films seminal title were acquired by producers Akiva Goldsman, Richard Saperstein and Charlie Corwin. That package was expansive and included the 1984 original, four sequels, an animated TV series and comic books. Corwin’s Original Media, which is a partnership with Dutch reality TV maker Endemol, is funding development of what the makers call an environmentally-conscious action-comedy. In the original, the protagonist is a mop-wielding simpleton named Melvin, whose trusting ways made him easy prey for gym thugs who tossed him into a vat of toxic waste. The transformation into Toxie didn’t help his complexion, but gave him rippling muscles to wreak havoc on New Jersey polluters. The byproduct was that despite his misshapen appearance, the chicks finally dig Melvin after a lifetime of being ignored.

“The Toxic Avenger is exactly what the country–wait, that’s not big enough–what the world needs right now,” said Pink, who also directed Accepted and whose scripting credits include Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity. Kerry Foster, who runs Goldsman’s Weed Road, is executive producer with Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, the Troma proprietors who created Toxic Avenger. Shara Kay is co-producer. WME made Pink’s deal.