Director Macon Blair on Reimagining THE TOXIC AVENGER for a New Generation

Luisa Guerreiro as "Toxie" in the action, comedy, horror film, THE TOXIC AVENGER, a Cineverse release | Photo courtesy of Yana Blajeva/Legendary Pictures

By Shannon McGrew

In this new iteration of THE TOXIC AVENGER, from director Macon Blair, a downtrodden janitor, Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage), becomes exposed to a catastrophic toxic accident, and he’s transformed into a new kind of hero: The Toxic Avenger. Now, Toxie must rise from outcast to savior, taking on ruthless corporate overlords and corrupt forces who threaten his son, his friends, and his community. In a world where greed runs rampant… justice is best served radioactive. 

For the VOD release of THE TOXIC AVENGER, Creepy Kingdom’s Shannon McGrew spoke with director Macon Blair (I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore). During their chat, they discussed everything from bringing a fresh take to a cult classic to Peter Dinklage’s inspired casting and the art of mixing gore, humor, and heart.

**NOTE: Interview contains spoilers.

Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Macon. Troma’s The Toxic Avenger is a cult classic, so when you first signed on, what felt most important to preserve from the original, and what did you feel needed a fresh take for modern audiences? 

Macon Blair: I saw it when I was young, when it first came out on videotape, and it was very inspirational at that time. The short answer is that I wanted to capture the vibe of what it felt like to watch that movie when I was in sixth grade. To me, that was the slapstick sense of humor, gross out, but in a fun kind of way. It’s an underdog f**king up bullies. You kind of like all these characters, even though they’re kind of grotesque and insane, but you like hanging out with them. That was sort of the overall soup that I wanted to carry into this one. That’s what I expressed to the producers when they were soliciting pitches to write. Those movies have a sweetness to them, a kind of earnestness, and I didn’t want this one to be ironic or too cool for itself. I wanted to keep that in place. 

I wanted Toxie to be a performer in a suit and not a CGI version of the character. I felt like a person in a suit was part of it. Beyond that, there wasn’t a particular thing that I was conscious of, like we had to update this, but I was aware of not feeling like we were repeating the same story beat for beat. I felt like if we could get the tone and the spirit and the heart of it right, then we would be responsible for coming up with a new story so it wouldn’t feel like, ‘Why are we here in the first place? This is the same s**t that they did in the 80s.’ To me, that was also changing his emotional situation; instead of trying to connect with a girlfriend, he was trying to figure out his family unit and connect with a foster kid situation, and it flowed outward from that. It’s not Melvin, it’s Winston, it’s a new guy that inherits the mantle, and he’s got a different situation, he’s got a different personal life, and different shit to deal with. I felt like plugging that into a familiar feeling universe would be the way to go. 

The cast is stacked across the board, but having Peter Dinklage play Toxie was such inspired casting. What made him right for the role, and how did you two work together to craft your version of Toxie?

Macon Blair: The reason why we sent the script to him and asked him to do it was because I felt like we had about 20 minutes at the beginning of the movie where we really had to get people on this guy’s side. He really had to engage, not that he can’t when he becomes Toxie, but then he is under makeup, and it’s just different. Dinklage is kind of sinister in “Game of Thrones,” but everybody loves his character. He’s got something where he can get the audience in his corner very quickly, and I felt like that would be a great secret weapon to have. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but he is a big fan of the original Toxie and Troma movies, in general. He is from New Jersey (the same as Toxic Avenger), and so it was sort of part of his growing up as well, so it took no convincing at all; he was like, ‘I’m in.’ Once you have an actor like that anchoring it, it permits you to be ridiculous and silly because it has this real emotional anchor to the character. He’s playing it very real and very straight, but everything going on around him is totally preposterous. 

Peter Dinklage and Macon Blair Behind-the-Scenes of THE TOXIC AVENGER | Image courtesy of Legendary

Troma excels at using practical effects to showcase gore effectively in their films. For this rendition, how did you and your team approach blending practical effects with digital to create that gross, gritty, but oddly polished look? 

Macon Blair: The feeling of it being homemade was a big part of it. We definitely did some CGI in some cases. By my standards, this was a very large movie, but by Legendary standards, it was actually quite small, so we had to do a lot in a very short amount of time. It’s faster, and you can do more resets if you do a digital thing into somebody’s head; it just works better. It would be lovely to be able to do practical work across the board, but sometimes you can’t. Having the central character be a person in a suit was very important, as was how Kevin Bacon’s character evolves. That was very important. 

There were certain foundational elements that I was like, in whatever version we’re talking about here, such as schedule and budget; it needs to be a practical version of itself. And it’s because of wanting it to have that homemade feeling that I think whoever’s in the cast or whatever’s going on, it wants to have that homemade feeling because that’s sort of, to me, again, going back to how it felt when I was in sixth grade watching it. To me, it felt like, ‘Oh shit, this is a movie that some regular dudes made with their friends.’ That’s how it felt watching it on the screen; it was not a big studio thing that felt very far away and unattainable, and I really wanted to preserve that feeling. Seeing some of the little imperfections, I love seeing that in movies, and that’s kind of what I wanted to carry over. 

With the film now out in the world, looking back, do you have a favorite scene or moment? 

Macon Blair: I have a lot, but I think the one that I really like is the final battle where Kevin Bacon’s character gets put headfirst into a car engine and ground up, which is like complete nonsense, of course, but it makes sense in an Itchy & Scratchy or Tom & Jerry sort of way. That was a gag that I had written into other stories and scripts in the past that had never been able to get made, and finally, this was an opportunity to be like, This is the one movie where I’ll be able to do that. 

What do you hope longtime fans of Toxie or even brand new ones take away from this latest chapter? 

Macon Blair: What’s classic about the original and whatever this sort of bad guy is that Toxie is fighting or whatever he’s up against, and this was another thing that I really liked about the original and stuck with me, was the powerless outsider being able to stick it to the powers that be. It’s like a David and Goliath situation. It’s a very classic story that never goes out of style. It can feel relevant anytime. It felt relevant, fun, rock and roll, and inspiring back then, and I was hoping, or at least the intention was, to carry some of that to this version as well. 

THE TOXIC AVENGER is now available on VOD and will arrive on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on October 28, 2025.