This interview was originally published on ComicBookMovie.com.
In The Toxic Avenger, when a downtrodden janitor, Winston Gooze, is exposed to a catastrophic toxic accident, he’s transformed into a new kind of hero: The Toxic Avenger. Now, Toxie must rise from outcast to saviour, taking on ruthless corporate overlords and corrupt forces who threaten his son, his friends, and his community.
The movie, distributed by Cineverse and produced by Legendary Entertainment, has been a long time coming. It reimagines Toxie for a new audience following Lloyd Kaufman's seminal 1984 movie and countless video games and comic books (there was even a 2008 rock musical).
Macon Blair (I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore) takes the helm of The Toxic Avenger. The must-see movie—you can read our review here—stars Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Julia Davis, Jonny Coyne, Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon.
Much has been said about this reboot being released "unrated," and Macon tells us in the player below that he didn't make the movie with any rating in mind. Instead, he set out to deliver as fun a take on Toxie as possible.
"There was no consideration of rated or unrated at the time. I approached it as a comedy. There is some gore in there, but I was approaching all of the gore gags as jokes. They were meant to be punchlines, not, 'Ohh, that's cruel or that's squirmy to sit through.' The context is so cartoonish and ridiculous, it's not the same thing as what some people might call torture porn, where the context is realistic and people are suffering. This is obviously bananas, and consciously or not, you know people aren't really suffering, and it's like a Tom & Jerry cartoon. In that context, I thought of it as, 'Let's just put jokes in it, and if anyone pushes back, we can have conversations then.' Nobody ever did!"
As for how he approached The Toxic Avenger's gore, Blair explained that his approach was inspired by his formative years and that it's intended to be fun, not to shock in the same way as other similarly bloody horror movies.
"That was a lot of fun. The thing about The Toxic Avenger is, the first time I saw it, I was in seventh grade and my friends and I were learning to make our own movies on videotape. A lot of that was driven by us figuring out how to do our own effects like squibs and burns. This really was a full circle return to that, but with actual technicians and people who are really good at their jobs doing it [Laughs]. That felt, in a weird way, like being back in junior high again with your buddies trying to figure out how to make gross things happen on screen."
Those practical effects also extended to how Toxie was brought to life on screen. Blair talked us through how he approached the titular character's redesign, revealing that it was important to keep the human connection after Winston is transformed into a mutant anti-hero.
"Going the practical route was the first thing I suggested to Legendary. I felt that the handmade texture of the originals was something people would really expect. If we did a really slick, CGI version of the character, that just didn't feel correct in my head. That was certainly part of it, and it was a matter of how to make Toxie feel like he's consistent with the human version of the person playing him."
"We did a lot of different designs, and some of them he was super, super gnarly and mutated, and they looked very cool and I liked them, but they felt very disconnected from the human he started out as. We ended up going back in a direction that was a little bit closer to resembling Peter's face and was a little more human in its design. I wanted people to feel connected to him and not have it be an outlandish monster from where he started. "
One of the best things about The Toxic Avenger is the fact that it takes place in a world that feels fleshed out and well-established. It's a blast to spend time in, and Blair was eager for audiences to enjoy exploring Toxie's reality. However, creating it involved a great deal of hard work.
"I love that question. It was so much fun, and I really enjoy—and particularly in a movie like this—the idea that it takes place in its own self-contained universe. So, music, brand names of products, and anything like that is all self-contained. I love that sense of detail and world-building. I had a really great production designer named Alex Cameron, and we spent so much time talking about how it was going to look. The basic idea is that it's a very, decayed, rundown place, but you wouldn't necessarily mind hanging out there. We didn't want it to be depressing or foreboding. It might be fun to spend an afternoon walking around."
You can hear much more from the filmmaker above, including the unique lengths Julia Davis went to to bring her character to life and what it's been like to see the overwhelmingly positive response to his take on The Toxic Avenger.
The Toxic Avenger will be in theaters on August 29, 2025.