The Big Picture

For his second feature film as a director, Macon Blair remade the 1984 Troma classic, The Toxic Avenger. His version of the story stars Peter Dinklage as Winston Gooze, a janitor who’s transformed by a horrible toxic waste accident. While at Fantastic Fest 2023 for the film’s world premiere, Blair told Collider all about making a new Toxic Avenger film that would both satisfy longtime Troma fans and encourage newcomers to join the goopy and gross fun.

‘Tis the season for genre movie recommendations to watch on Halloween, but we’ll also use it as an opportunity to tease a must-watch creature feature you’re likely to get in 2024, Macon Blair’s remake of the Troma classic, The Toxic Avenger.

In Blair’s film, Peter Dinklage headlines as Winston Gooze, a janitor who survives a horrible toxic waste accident, but emerges from it almost totally transformed. He’s now covered in boils, warts and blisters, but deep down, he’s still the same old Winston, so with his newly acquired superhuman strength and glowing mop, he sets out to be the force he’s always dreamed of, one with the courage to save his son (Jacob Tremblay) and stop power-hungry corporate monsters who have wronged him and countless others.

Not only did I have the pleasure of seeing The Toxic Avenger at Fantastic Fest 2023 during its world premiere screening, but then I got the opportunity to chat with Blair about the making of the movie. He walked me through the entire process beginning with how he wound up working with Legendary on the project all the way through to the possibility of a Toxic Avenger sequel. Blair discussed tackling the challenge of making a movie for longtime Toxie lovers while also broadening the fandom, how he first pitched the role to Dinklage, finding the perfect look for his version of Toxie, and loads more.

You can watch the conversation in the video at the top of this article, or you can read the interview in transcript form below.

The Toxic Avenger doesn’t have a release date just yet, but after a positive reception at Fantastic Fest, Beyond Fest, and Sitges, hopes are high we’ll get an update from Legendary soon.

Image via Legendary

PERRI NEMIROFF: Holy shit, you opened Fantastic Fest well.

MACON BLAIR: Oh man, that’s what we were hoping for! We mentioned this after the show last night, but when we were talking about where we would love to premiere this movie, everybody’s first and only answer was Fantastic Fest. It’s like grown in a lab to host this kind of a movie, and the folks seem to dig it so we couldn’t be happier.

I want to go back to the beginning with this. Is it a situation where you knew Legendary had acquired the rights to the original film and you went to them with an idea?

BLAIR: It was the opposite of that. I had done a little bit of work for them elsewhere, and they brought it to me. They had just gotten the rights from Lloyd [Kaufman] …

This makes me respect Legendary way more than I already did.

BLAIR: They didn’t offer it to me on a platter. They said, “What would your take be?” As I’m sure they did to a bunch of people and I told them what I thought, and I really, scout’s honor, expected them at any point to say, “No, thank you for your time, but that’s not what we’re into.” I kind of half assumed that maybe they would want a PG-13 or something that’s more family-friendly or mainstream, however you quantify that. And I kept saying, “It’s gotta be R. It’s gotta be a dude in a suit. It’s gotta be silly and ridiculous and like purpose fully juvenile.” And they kept going, “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” And at a certain point, it was like, “Okay, well, I’m just gonna write this goddamn thing and we’ll see what happens,” and here we are.

I know you’re a big Troma fan, but why direct a Toxic Avenger movie for your second feature as a director honing his craft? What did you think you would get from this material that would benefit you as a director moving forward?

BLAIR: I love that question. When I was a young person I saw the movie at a very impressionable age and it got stuck in my head and kind of formed what I liked about movies in some ways. As I got older, I started watching other things, and so it’s not like I carried around this idea that I needed to remake The Toxic Avenger. I didn’t have that idea at all until Legendary brought it up, but I had tried to do several movies that, it wasn’t necessarily the story as much as a list of ingredients, which was a big, silly comedy that’s also rated R, that also has monsters, that’s also kind of sentimental and warmhearted. And so I would have these things that I would write, they would be exorbitantly expensive, rated R, worst of all not based on an IP. They were never going to get made, and they didn’t. Some of them I reworked as comic books, but it was just like, I could never do that type of movie. And then all of a sudden, Legendary was like, “We’ve got this IP, and it’s The Toxic Avenger,” and I was like, “Well shit!” If ever there was an already existing character or franchise, whatever you want to say, that demanded it be big and goopy and silly and sentimental and sweet and gross and all those things I was trying to do, it was this one. I was like, “Oh, this is how I could scratch that itch and make that type of movie with the support of a studio like Legendary that has the resources to make a movie like that,” and also was into, again, the type of movie that I was hoping to do, which is for the Fantastic Fest crowd.

Image via Troma Entertainment

Exactly! That leads me to another big burning question I had because Troma has a significant fan base, as does Toxic Avenger individually. It’s a very specific fan base though where, if that’s not your type of movie, it’s difficult to welcome more people into that fan club. So, what’s something about the ‘84 original that you knew you wanted to uphold for the longtime fans, but then what’s something you deliberately strove to do differently to broaden the fan base?

BLAIR: That was absolutely the kind of tightrope, like how do we honor the fan base? Because we knew we had to make something that would appeal to them and they would feel like, “Yes, you didn’t take this thing that’s beloved to us and take it in some new direction that it doesn’t warrant,” but as you said, it’s a very devoted vocal fan base, but of the overall moviegoing population, it’s quite a small sliver. So we had to make sure they were taken care of first, and also make sure that people that had never heard of The Toxic Avenger were also gonna be taken care of. So for me, it was certainly the silly-on-purpose, kind of juvenile-on-purpose sense of humor, anything for a laugh, anything to sort of tickle people’s sensibility that revolves around physical gags and gross makeup and stuff like that. We definitely wanted to preserve all of that.

In the original, the main character, he was a teenage guy and he was kind of an outcast at high school. It was really about him trying to get accepted by the cool kids and the pretty girls, and he was like an outcast nerd. We kind of felt like they had already done that. It really would be too much of stepping exactly in the same footsteps to have that be the dynamic again, and so for this time, the character is older, he’s trying to raise a stepson, he’s trying to raise a kid on his own, and he’s just having a hard time with that. He’s not really cut out to be a dad, and he’s not really connected to this kid, and so that’s the kind of emotional story that we bury within all the mutant mayhem stuff that’s going on. So that was sort of the new thing, the new direction we tried to take it in.

I am about to jump into how damn good Peter Dinklage is in that role, but first, just to compare ‘84 Troma to what you do now more, I want to lean into the visual style and the filmmaking techniques that you use. What was the key to being able to uphold that low-budget ‘80s cult classic feel, but while also incorporating new filmmaking techniques and tools so that modern audiences feel it’s fresh?

BLAIR: The director of photography was named Dana Gonzales, and he’s just a brilliant dude, and we talked a lot about how we were going to kind of artificially restrain ourselves where even if we wanted to have big swooping camera moves, digitally assisted movements, and all this kind of stuff, we really kind of tried to limit camera movement and make it seem as if we were handcuffing one of our hands to have this feel that it’s a little more indie and self-contained. We broke that rule sometimes …

I can think of some really cool shots where you broke the rules but it was worthwhile!

BLAIR: Exactly, where we go kind of big but we kept the coverage very basic, we kept the framing very basic so it would have this kind of feel of a movie that had to be shot in 16 days, and you have to get this shot and then the police are gonna come, and you don’t have a permit, and you’ve got to hit the road – that kind of a run and gun sort of vibe.

The charm of Troma movies!

BLAIR: Yeah, exactly! Which is being able to see those little imperfections. Certainly having Toxie be an actor in a suit as opposed to, I guess there could be a world where Toxie would be an Andy Serkis CGI, 20-foot-tall something or other, but that was one of the first things I said. I was like, “It’s really gotta be rated R and it’s got to be an actor in a suit,” and those were the things that they agreed with. And so having that physical tactile quality to it where you can see the little bubbles and lines and stuff like that, that’s part of the texture that I think people who know this character would hope to see.

Image via Legendary Pictures

Many questions about that incredible suit. First, what would you say is the biggest difference between draft one of that design that you saw and what Toxie looks like in the finished feature?

BLAIR: You know what? He started out way more — what would be a way to say it — more like a zombie, more like rotted off, and much more monstrous. We went through a series, just when we were in the art phase, and we had a couple of really great artists, one was named Vanessa Menendez and one was named Jonas McCluggage, he’s a comic book artist, she’s a painter. I was really exploring some real Night of the Living Dead-type looks and then we kind of took a second look at that and as it went further along, we tried to humanize him a bit more so that even though he’s got all these boils — I’m not sure if people will have seen the movie when they watch this or not, but it’s no spoiler that he looks gross — he’s got boils and warts and blisters, he’s got one super distended eye, but within that you can still see a lot of humanity. And so we pushed the monster side of things really far and then walked that back.

I don’t know how much you can speak to this because their team is a little more hands-on with how all of this works, but what kind of conversations did you have in terms of making sure that the design, and Peter in it, was able to be so expressive? Because it looks like a very heavy prosthetic to me …

BLAIR: Extremely.

But when I’m watching the film, I can see things as small as eyebrow movements, and that makes all the difference in a performance like that.

BLAIR: It’s the eyes, for sure. Exactly. And that’s why an actor in a suit – if we could spend a year animating something, maybe you could get that type of reactive detail, but there’s something about, as you said, an eyelid doing this at a pivotal moment of dialogue that costs nothing but it’s the best effect in the movie because it’s like, “Oh, you can feel his beating heart inside there.” So yes, we definitely worked with the suit designers and the makeup artists to make sure that that sort of performance would come through. That was something that seemed really important was that, the first 20 minutes of the movie, he’s a human, and then he has a crazy science fiction accident and he becomes this mutant monster, [and] really wanting it to feel like you could see that human character inside all that goop and grossness later on and not treat it like, “Okay, now he’s a monster. We’re starting fresh. It’s a brand new guy.” It really had to have that continuity and that connection that the audience made with human version once he turned into monster version.

Great, great success in that respect.

Image via Legendary Entertainment

So going back to the beginning with Peter now, what was it about him that one day made you wake up and think, “He is the perfect Toxie?” And then, what was his first reaction when you pitched it to him?

BLAIR: It goes back to that 20-minute window at the top of the movie where it’s kind of like we really have to draw people into this character and his plight, the way he’s trying to connect with his kid, the way he’s kind of out of sorts in society and has been dealt a raw deal. And if they’re not sympathizing with him by then, by the time he turns into the monster, then they’re not going to get on board after that point. We knew that we wanted an actor who could instantly engender that kind of sympathy in the audience, could also be very funny both with dialogue and also physicality, and can also be quite dark and full of rage, and kind of check all these boxes. There’s some actors that can do a little bit of this or a little bit of that, there’s fewer still that can do all of it simultaneously, and fewer still that can do all of it simultaneously and are famous enough to kickstart the movie, which is also what we needed. And so it was kind of like, “Oh!” I was very fortunate that I had met Peter at a film festival, and we had just kind of stayed in touch very casually, just kind of like, “Would you read this script? Would you read that script,” in the years leading up to it.

That’s the best part of film festivals.

BLAIR: Absolutely! He saw a movie I did and he said, “Hey, can I buy you lunch?” And we hung out. This was right when Game of Thrones was wrapping up, so like a fool, he gave me his phone number and so then every Sunday night, I’d have a couple of beers and I’m like, “Are you gonna end up on the Iron Throne?” And he’s like, “Ha ha ha.” So maybe he regretted that, but we stayed in touch, and I was just like, “Oh, he can do all of that stuff and can have that kind of everyman sort of quality that will get people on board with him before he turns into the monster.” I brought it to him and I said exactly what I said to you. I was like, “We’ll hear you throughout the movie, but we’re really gonna be spending time with you at the beginning and so it’s kind of a heavy lift, and it’s kind of a lot of pressure.” But, I felt like it was gonna be a fun time for him and a fun role that he hadn’t gotten to do, a big over the top – he’s terribly funny, but he tends to play more dramatic roles most of the time lately anyway. And so I think this was a chance to really go into the funny side of things.

Same thing with Kevin Bacon. He was like, “Oh, it’s a villain?” Because he’s like, “People keep wanting me to play corrupt cops and stuff.” And I was like, “Yes, he is the villain, but it’s super silly. It’s super goofy,” and he was like, “Okay …” And then he read it and then he called back, he was like, “Oh yeah, now I get it. It’s not like Villain, Villain. It’s like lowercase V villain.” I think that was attractive to both of them getting to do something they don’t normally get an opportunity to do.

To highlight even more of your incredible ensemble here, of all the characters in the movie, which was the easiest to cast where the perfect person magically came to you, but then I want the exact opposite, the role that took the most leg work to find the perfect fit for?

BLAIR: Oh, wow. Fritz. Elijah Wood playing Fritz who is like the henchman, carries out the dirty deeds for the bad guys, and he’s kind of this Gothic creep-looking guy. He’s bald. The whole idea was to make him be unrecognizable as sweet, kind-faced Elijah Wood and just have him be as equally as monstrous as Toxie was. I wrote that part for him, and I didn’t really think about anybody else for that one. And luckily I pitched him to Legendary, I pitched the part to him, and everybody was very quickly on board. That was the easiest.

It’s so perfect to have him in that role and then to bring this movie to Fantastic Fest with him in it. It was just meant to be.

BLAIR: I think so too. It was just one of those things. He’s got like – I don’t know if they’re doing it this year, but in years past, they had a tattoo artist here …

Oh, I’m worried about that because I will do it if I see it and I like it.

BLAIR: He’s got a whole collection of Fantastic Fest tattoos on his arm from over the years. He’s here every year, so it did feel like absolute full-circle of getting him in the movie and then getting to premiere it here.

If they have a Toxie tattoo, are you gonna get it?

BLAIR: 100%! Oh lord, yeah.

Image via Legendary Entertainment

I would hope so! So now I need the other half of that question, the role that took the most leg work to find the right fit for.

BLAIR: Leg work makes it sound like it was an impossible equation to solve, and it wasn’t, but the part that we really looked at a lot of different people for was J.J., who is a new character. She’s sort of like a rogue investigator that’s gathering information. I’m sort of giving you some context if people haven’t seen it, but she’s gathering information to take down this evil corporation. She kind of starts the movie as a hero and kind of sets this example to Toxie. He doesn’t want anything to do with fighting anybody or anything like that, and she kind of brings him along that path.

It was a character where we felt like we didn’t necessarily need somebody who was a superstar that everybody knew, but we ended up very luckily getting Taylour Paige who at the time when we shot it, I had just seen Zola and Ma Rainey’s [Black Bottom], and she was just fantastic in those. I’d seen Ma Rainey’s, and then I saw Zola a little bit later in the process, and it was just sort of like wanting somebody who had that toughness and that grit but didn’t have an actors thing, if you know what I mean? She’s very vanity-free. She doesn’t need perfect lighting and to make sure everything is – she just kind of rolls with it and is in it to sort of scrap and get physical, and do all the running and fighting and jumping in the role. So it’s kind of like this fun action role that, again, I don’t think she got to do, but she just had this very believable, realistic quality to it as opposed to a Black Widow-type of character where everything is so perfect and precise. There’s kind of like a clunkiness to it, which I find very endearing. She makes mistakes that she goes to, like every time she tries to make progress against these bad guys, something goes wrong, and so she’s always flustered, which is very funny, but you kind of go on that ride with her, and eventually so does Toxie.

Her chemistry with Peter and Jacob is so perfect and that’s what’s vital to the heart of this movie to make them feel like a little family that you want to get behind.

BLAIR: Precisely so. It’s sort of like they’re all like on scattered corners of the board, and then throughout the thing, they kind of end up on a little bit of an uneasy team together, which is fun to see.

Her line delivery, too. She’s got some pitch-perfect lines, and perfectly timed lines!

BLAIR: Super deadpan, where it’s just not playing it to be funny, but it’s sort of like with one step removed from it, it is funny.

There are so many things I want to repeat right now, but I’m not gonna ruin it for everyone!

Image via Legendary

As we wind down here, I can’t end this conversation without talking about your collaboration with Lloyd. What was it like working with him, and how did he support upholding the Troma vision, but also supporting your vision for this character as well?

BLAIR: It’s not that he was hands-off, he definitely had notes and suggestions, but he always framed them every single time like, “Now this is your thing.” There was no, “I really hope you’ll do this or that.” It was really just, “Hey, if you want to do this …” and some of the ideas end up in the movie and some of them didn’t just because we were doing different stuff. He came out to visit the set in Bulgaria and I think that was a lot of fun for him because it’s shooting in Europe, and it’s this weird germ of an idea that he had, you know, 40-odd years ago, and it’s become this phenomenon now, and he’s kind of looking at these sets and everything like that, and he said it was very touching to see it continuing and enduring after all these years. So, he was very supportive and seemed to want to overstate like, “This is yours. I’m not gonna get in the way, I’m not gonna get in the way.” At a certain point, I was like, “You can get in the way a little bit more than that, man!” [Laughs]

It was important to me as much as sort of crafting a story that the Troma fans would love that Lloyd and also Michael [Herz], his sort of behind-the-scenes partner, were involved and part of it. If all we did was take the title and then go do our own thing without bringing the original squad along for the ride, that would sort of defeat its own purpose, too. I just kind of look at it like, you’ve got Batman and then there’s Adam West, Christian Bale, there’s all the Batmans. You’ve got James Bond, you’ve got all the different James Bonds, and you can discuss which ones you like better or worse or whatever. I kind of feel like Toxie is the same type of character that can withstand and actually demand reinvention and being reintroduced. He had the original movies, he’s got the comic book, he’s got the cartoon, and now there’s this new version which does not replace any of those, it just extends it. And maybe in the future, it gets extended more. So long as it’s all flowing downhill from Troma, I think it’ll be good.

You just teed up my last greedy question because I only first saw the movie last night, but now I want more. You make a little joke about it in the movie, too, but if it does come to fruition and you get to make another, do you have the next chapter of Winston’s story in your back pocket?

BLAIR: I wouldn’t say I have a chapter designed and ready to go, but I definitely know the direction I would want it to go and what I would want to happen to him and his little family unit. If people were to get down and wanna do another one, for sure, I would have some stuff to suggest to them.

Image via Legendary The Toxic Avenger Reboot A horrible toxic accident transforms downtrodden janitor, Winston Gooze into a new evolution of hero: THE TOXIC AVENGER! Director Macon Blair Cast Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Elijah Wood, Kevin Bacon Rating R Main Genre Horror Studio Legendary