It’s been a long time coming, butThe Toxic Avengeris finally here for us to witness on the big screen this upcoming August. Directed byMacon Blair, the adaptation of the original film by Troma Entertainment andLloyd Kaufmanhas been much delayed and long-gestating, stemming from the struggle to find distribution.
With Cineverse at the helm, audiences can finally experience the twisted butwholly entertaining take on the superhero genre. Despite its mass amounts of violence, the cast and crew ofToxic Avengeragree that there is something wholesome to their film. In the movie,Peter Dinklageplays janitor Winston Gooze, who mutates intoa mop-wielding vigilante, Toxie, after a freak accident.
AtSan Diego Comic-Con2025, Collider’sSteve Weintraubsat down with Blair, Kaufman, Dinklage,Taylour Paige, andJacob Tremblayat the Collider Media Studio to discussThe Toxic Avenger,its long delay, Kaufman’s experience working onSaturday Night Fever, and what projects they have coming up, includingDexterand a new Laika stop-motion animated film.
‘The Toxic Avenger’ Is So Much More Than Violence
“Unlike the first one, which was a cartoon…”
COLLIDER: I am thrilled to have the folks behindThe Toxic Avengerin our studio. I’ve been waiting to see this for a really long time, and you guys do not disappoint. I think people are going to love this, especially people who love unrated violence. I’m going to say it like that. Or extreme. Anyway, it’s for me. Thank you for making it.
MACON BLAIR: I’m glad you liked it.
LLOYD KAUFMAN: Wait a minute. Unrated violence? That’s the only reason you liked it? That’s likeTerrifier—that’sunrated violence. This is a movie with pathos, with a familial relationship. Now I’m going to shut up, but it’s a beautiful, emotional film, unlike the first one, which was a cartoon, where a kid gets his head squashed by an automobile.
One of the things that I also love about the movie is how it shines a light on what corporations are willing to do. There’s a lot to this that’s not just violence by a character. There’s a lot of messaging in this, as well, and I really appreciate that. I’ve been asking this of everyone, and before we get intoToxic Avenger, I’m obsessed with getting more people to see movies in movie theaters. For each of you, do you have a favorite movie theater?
TAYLOUR PAIGE: Oh, that’s a great question.
BLAIR: I love the Galaxy Highland Theater in Austin, Texas. That’s where we go a lot to go see movies. They have great matinees. I also like the Alamo, of course, but Galaxy Highland is right by my house, so I go there a lot.
PETER DINKLAGE: Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn in my neighborhood. It’s amazing. Great margaritas.
I am a fan of the Cadillac Margarita.
KAUFMAN: Good to know. I’m going to remember that.
DINKLAGE: And fried pickles.
KAUFMAN: Radio City Music Hall, where the firstBlood Sucking Freaksplayed. Projection’s a little off, but otherwise pretty good. Not as good as the Alamo in Austin.
People don’t realize that Radio City used to do movies.
KAUFMAN: You know how many movies got ruined by the fact that they were made as road shows for Radio City? Billy Wilder, [Otto] Preminger. All of the old, great directors had masterpieces destroyed because they were made for Radio City road shows, and then they got chopped up because those road shows didn’t work. That’s whyAvantiand so many of the great latter works of the great directors, people say the movies are no good. They were made for Radio City.
TAYLOUR PAIGE: I’m a Landmark kinda gal, and I like Alamo, too. Who doesn’t? It’s yummy. It’s convenient. Put your legs up, lay your seat back.
JACOB TREMBLAY: Up in Canada, we have Cineplex, and there’s one in Vancouver that’s got this big alien spaceship on the top of it. I always like going to that one, and it always feels really cool.
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Macon Blair detailed how he kept the themes of Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s original while offering a new story.
‘The Toxic Avenger’ “Wears Its Heart on Its Sleeve”
“The great [Steven] Spielberg movies, they always kept that in their sights.”
You guys premiered at Fantastic Fest two years ago. Pardon my language, but what the fuck? Why have people had to wait so long to see this? Because it’s a good movie.
BLAIR: It just had to marinate for a little bit. It just had to sit in the oven a little bit longer. On the other side of it, having landed with Cineverse, who are putting it out into the world on screens all across the country, and it’s coming to San Diego, of course, it sort of feels likeif waiting a couple of years to land with a partner like that was the thing that had to happen, I would have been happy to wait twice as long. It just took a minute to find the right group.
PAIGE: No! We couldn’t wait twice as long.
BLAIR: I’m just saying all’s well that ends well, and here we are.
They’re going to be a really good partner for this.
BLAIR: They already have been. I just feel like it took a minute to find precisely the right partner who wasn’t just going to add it to a catalog and sort of dump it to streaming, but really got the vibe of it and the sense of humor and saw it as a way to connect with audiences and be a crowd-pleaser. That’s just what it took to get there. I’m happy to wait, as it turns out.
KAUFMAN: The audience at Fantastic Fest had five additional screenings. It was packed, and people loved it. They loved your film, and that’s a tough crowd.
BLAIR: It went well at Beyond Fest, too. We came out of there feeling good. It just took a minute to get where we are.
What are the three of you really excited for audiences to experience with this? Because there’s a lot to love.
TREMBLAY: I have this big dance sequence that we do that I’m pretty excited for people to see. It was really fun to shoot and choreograph. We just had fun with it, man. It was great.
BLAIR: You were fantastic.
KAUFMAN: Fantoxic.
PAIGE: I’m excited for them to see the whole goddamn thing. It’s just great. It’s good, it’s funny, it’s serious.I do my own stunts, except for one, because he didn’t want me to break my legs. But I was willing to.
BLAIR: For the record, she was willing to, and I did not want her to break her legs. This is both true.
KAUFMAN: First rule of Troma Productions for 51 years, and we’re in the underground with no money, safety to humans. That’s the first rule. It’s the most important. It’s only a movie.
PETER DINKLAGE: I just love the idea of fun violence. It sounds like an oxymoron, but in a very dark time we’re living in now, the satirical nature of this film, and the warmth at the same time… When Toxie hurts somebody, he apologizes to them for hurting them. So,it wears its heart on its sleeve. To get back into the movies I grew up on, the great [Steven] Spielberg movies, they always kept that in their sights. So, I hope people can embrace that.
PAIGE: It’s irreverent. It’s tongue-in-cheek. It’s loud, but it’s also subtle. It’s got every spectrum of emotion and wildness.
DINKLAGE: I’m excited for people to embrace the midnight madness feeling of it. The first one, when I was a kid, was taboo. “Have you seenThe Toxic Avengeryet?” It was like a suburban legend. Hopefully, this inspires that as well.
PAIGE: “Suburban Legend” is a good band name.
DINKLAGE: “Ladies and gentlmen, it’s Suburban Legend.”
I’m always curious how a film changes from inception to what people are going to see on the screen. How did this change during the development and the making of the film?
BLAIR: The one thing was, in designing the world, I had some particular ideas about how the world was going to look and feel. Then we brought in these really great designers and scenic artists and painters. It was a lot of fun to give a couple of key design notes, and thenlet them go wild and have it evolve on its ownin ways that maybe I hadn’t planned for, and let them show off their skills in ways that maybe they weren’t able to on other projects. I can say, “Oh, it was all my idea,” but it was really this group of incredibly talented people that I was lucky enough to get to work with. It’s always fun to come in with a grain of an idea, and then hand it off to other people who are much more talented than myself and see where it ends up. That’s always fun for me as an observer.
Lloyd Kaufman Discusses Working on ‘Saturday Night Fever’
Lloyd, when I was researching getting to talk to you today, I had no idea you were the location scout forSaturday Night Fever.
KAUFMAN: I was the locationexecutive. There would be noSaturday Night Feverwithout moi. It was very difficult and very low budget. The movie’s great, but it was a hell of a job.
I did read that you were the one who discovered the club.
KAUFMAN: Well, that’s not really true. The movie’s based on an article in New York Magazine,and that club was mentioned, but the first director, John G. Avildsen, who didRocky, didn’t want to use that club. He leftSaturday Night Fever, and John Badham, who came on, liked the 2001 [Club], and I had to negotiate for very little money. The guy was a good guy, who owned it.
BLAIR: It was in Queens, right?
KAUFMAN: Yes, Queens. The house where [John Travolta] lived was in Bay Ridge, and a lot of the locations were Bay Ridge. It was like running for Congress, because there was no money. It was like running for Congress, like, “Please give us your house.” Then we have to put lights on people’s houses.
The director wantedthathouse. It had to be that house. I had to set up all that stuff on the Triborough. We closed down Triborough. I told the city we’d be out by rush hour. The next day,The Daily Newshad a photograph of the traffic all the way to Connecticut because we went late. We were not out by rush hour. Of course, that was my neck.
DINKLAGE: That’s, like, one of the most famous scenes in movies.
KAUFMAN: Oh, it’s wonderful. They built that platform where the guy jumped off. If it was a Troma movie, we wouldn’t have had the platform. He’d just jump off.
BLAIR: I thought you said safety first?!
PAIGE:Today.
When you were makingSaturday Night Fever, at what point did you realize, “Oh, wait, this might be a really special movie?”
KAUFMAN: From the beginning. I read the script. Norman Wexler, who wroteJoe, which was my first job, John G. Avildsen, who was Mr.Rockyand Mr.Karate Kid, a major director, he hired Norman Wexler, who had writtenJoe, which was a wonderful film. Norman wrote an amazing script. It was terrific. So I was like, “Hey, this is early in my career. That’s great. I’m on a good movie!” Avildsen had a fight with the bosses, and Badham came in, who was also a great director. I talk about it in my very first book, which was written by James Gunn. We talk a lot about what happened onSaturday Night Fever. It’s a great film. It really is. Badham did a great job.
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You’ve made so many movies, and obviouslyToxichas now been remade.
KAUFMAN:Reimagined. This is Macon Blair’sToxic Avenger.
Reimagined, I’m sorry. What is something from Troma’s past that you would love to see someone come in and reimagine the way that this has been done?
KAUFMAN: Right now, we’re reimaginingPoultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, which is kind of an anti-fast food musical. There’s been an offer forSgt. Kabukiman NYPD.
Can that title still be used today?
KAUFMAN: Oh, I don’t know. If you see the movie, we had a Kabuki actor on set constantly to make sure that the Kabuki part of it is legitimate. We had to license from Kabuki-za in London and Tokyo to get permission to even talk about Kabuki theater. The Kabuki part is great, and the movie is one of our best and most successful. It was co-produced by Bandai. We got a partner who put up half the money and we put up half. It’s probably Troma’s most expensive movie.
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The Toxic Avenger and his pals' short-lived cartoon returns in December.
I want to talk , but I need people to see it so I can really break down some of the scenes and talk about some of the violence I loved.
BLAIR: For sure.
We’re at Comic-Con, so for everybody, is there something that you collect, or what would you love to look at or purchase or shop if you were on the convention floor?
BLAIR: I’m a comic book collector. I’m not sure if they have this here, but I’m assuming they would; I like going to look for the quarter bins or the dollar bins, where it’s stuff that hasn’t been perfectly preserved, but you can just get a stack of 20 things for super cheap. I think I would hang around there for a while. I would go to the worn-out bins and just get a big stack for 10 bucks.
DINKLAGE: I used to be a big collector of stuff. It comes to a point where it’s the term “hoarding,” which became a zeitgeist word. I have a closet full of stuff. I would love to just walk around and just browse, and pick up something Star Wars-y.
TREMBLAY: I started collecting old [Playstation 2] games recently. I don’t know if they have that here, but that’s just something that I started collecting very recently. I’m not too picky. I just go to any video stores and find some good ones. I like theResident Evils.
What’s your favorite PS2 game?
TREMBLAY: It’s not specifically on PS2, butResident Evil 4. So fun.
A lot of people say that’s the best one.
PAIGE: I guess this is cheesy, but I have a baby, so maybe baby socks that have different characters, so I could see his little feet in cute things.
There’s a store really close on the street outside the con that sells socks. I’ll bet you they have stuff because it’s all stuff like that.
PAIGE: Gotta go!
BLAIR: Beyond getting things, the sophistication and the creativity and the costumes that people do these days are so impressive that, at any sort of convention setting, that’s always the thing I enjoy the most, is seeing the top-notch costumes that people have put together.
Peter Dinklage Teases How ‘Roofman’ Will Bring All the ’80s Nostalgia
Jacob, I’m a big fan of Laika and stop-motion. What can you tell people aboutWildwood? [Macon], I’m so curious aboutThe Lowdown, the TV show that you’re working on. [Peter], you’re onDexterthis season. Was your caveat when you agreed to be on the show: I need to be killed by Dexter? I would imagine if you’re onDexter, the dream is to get killed by Dexter.
DINKLAGE: You mean, like being wrapped in plastic all day long, and not sweat at all? Plastic wrap does not breathe.
You’re trying to say that maybe you don’t survive?
DINKLAGE: I don’t know. You’re going to have to tune in. When it’sDexter, anything goes, you know?
TREMBLAY:I actually recorded forWildwoodwhen we were shootingToxiein Bulgaria. I actually went to a recording studio and we did that. I’m super excited. Stop-motion takes a really long time, but I’m super excited for that to come out.
PAIGE: What he’s saying is booked and blessed.
BLAIR: When we were shooting [The Lowdown], it was called “The Sensitive Kind.” It’s like a private eye show, but not exactly a private eye show with a very particular Sterlin Harjo flavor to it. I think people are going to dig it. It’s Ethan Hawke. He’s the lead, but it’s got a great ensemble cast.
How many did you direct?
BLAIR: I directed two episodes.I believe this season is eight episodes long.It’s funny, but it’s also kind of dark and noirish.It’s doing a lot of tones at once, and Sterlin’s just a brilliant creator.
DINKLAGE: It’s amazing.
I really can’t wait.I am really looking forward toRoofman, mostly because I grew up going to Toys “R” Us. What can you tease people about that film and what you do in it?
DINKLAGE: Derek Cianfrance is one of the greats. When you get a call from him, I knw him a little bit, but it was just “Yes, I’ll do anything. I’ll work craft service. Whatever you need, man.” Because he’s like Macon; he’s a real artist, and he has a real clear idea of what he’s making. We shot that down in North Carolina, andthey used an abandoned Toys “R” Us from the ’80s, and they filled it as a working Toys “R” Us from scratch. They had the structure and the old Toys “R” Us logo that was fading. They put a new one on the front and filled it withendlessamounts of toys. Everybody who worked there, when they wrapped, got to take a toy home for their kids. It was really a throwback to what I remember about Toys “R” Us growing up, and we shot all of my stuff inside this Toys “R” Us in the back of it, throughout it. Like Macon, Derek is very authentic, and itreallyhelps actors.
I’m going to stop here and just say I really am so happy thatToxicis finally coming out. You guys did such awesome work with it.
KAUFMAN: We should thank Stan Lee and Roger Corman, because these guys are the ones who kept the thing going all these years. Stan Lee, with whom I was friends from the time I got out of Yale in 1968, and Corman, the same, encouraged me. Stan got the Marvel comic book done. He definitely kept Toxie alive so that this beautiful man could bring Toxie into the heavenly orb. Thank you all for being so nice and doing the movie, and being nice to this sad old man here.
TREMBLAY: Our pleasure.
DINKLAGE: Thank you for creating it.
It’s great to talk to everyone here, but I’m really happy to have met you. You have done so much in Hollywood.
KAUFMAN: Thank you.
The Toxic Avengerwill celebrate a wide theatrical release on August 29.
