A reboot of The Toxic Avenger starring Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon is receiving a major promotional push tied to a charitable effort. Cineverse partnered with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to eliminate at least $5 million in medical debt for families, with an additional $1 million to be cleared for every additional million the film earns. Earlier promotions included collaborations with Liquid Death and the reintroduction of Moviefone's phone line. Marketing planners initially considered a stunt involving dancing janitors, but the team pivoted to a debt-relief initiative after a colleague suggested doing something beneficial for people.
The Toxic Avenger, the schlocktacular splatterfest from the 1980s, is slashing its way out of video store purgatory this week, with a reboot starring Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon-and an innovative marketing campaign. Hybrid studio-distributor Cineverse is hyping the film by working with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to wipe out at least $5 million in debt for families struggling to pay their medical bills. (The grand total may end up being much more as another $1 million in debt will be shredded for every million that Toxie takes in from theaters.)
However, when the time came to put together the final push in the days before the movie's August 29 release date, Cineverse's marketing team had originally considered moving in a much different direction than where they ended up. "We were brainstorming stunts and I was leaning toward what we were calling a 'mop flash' with dancing janitors," Lauren McCarthy, SVP of marketing at Cineverse, tells Fast Company. That concept was rooted in the fact that Dinklage's titular character starts the movie working as a janitor. (The original 1984 film, from unapologetically trashy studio Troma, also centered around a custodian.) While flash mobs have previously helped promote movies like 2018's Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again -and while it's quite easy to imagine gyrating janitors making some kind of a splash online-the idea met with a bit of hesitancy in the room. "Someone on my very smart team said, 'Um, let's maybe do something good for the world instead,'" McCarthy recalls. "And when this idea came up, we pivoted right away."
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