{"id":102276,"date":"2025-08-30T03:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T03:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/102276\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T03:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T03:03:08","slug":"the-toxic-avenger-director-on-unrated-violence-sequel-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/102276\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Toxic Avenger’ Director on Unrated Violence, Sequel Hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMacon Blair saw the controversial 1984 film \u201cThe Toxic Avenger<\/a>\u201d as many Millennials did: on a contraband videotape courtesy of a friend\u2019s older brother. The 12-year-old Blair was exactly the right age to be on the wavelength of Troma\u2019s signature gross-out satire, and it fueled the budding filmmaker with inspiration.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSomeone had gotten their hands on a VHS camera, and we were trying to make our own movies,\u201d he says. \u201cThe tone of this, along with Monty Python and zombie stuff from George Romero, really came into the stuff we were trying to make as short films. Also, the feeling that it was totally homemade, not a Hollywood movie. It was seemingly regular people in their hometown doing it. So that was hugely inspirational and something that carried forward for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBlair\u2019s newest film is a remake of the seminal indie, which is opening in theaters Friday via Cineverse and Iconic Events Releasing. It stars Peter Dinklage as a down-on-his-luck janitor who becomes a violent hero after being doused in toxic waste. Along the way, he must wrangle being a father to a sullen teen (Jacob Tremblay), an evil CEO with a pollution problem (Kevin Bacon) and many more wacky characters, with jokes flying by like a gory \u201cNaked Gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe journey began in 2019, when Legendary Pictures teamed with Troma Entertainment for new take on the series\u2019 blood-soaked hero, Toxie. While Blair was in the mix as they were soliciting pitches, he never anticipated writing and directing his own chapter.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe idea of doing a remake of Toxie never ever occurred to me,\u201d Blair says. \u201cIt was formative for me at that age, and it put us on a path of making our own movies. But I was trying to do different things. Yet I realized that some of these scripts I was trying to write had a little bit of that same style, but they couldn\u2019t get made because they weren\u2019t based on anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps the biggest surprise is that A-list stars were willing to take on some of the wildest roles. Blair says that one critical \u201cyes\u201d got the ball rolling.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI took a roll of the dice with Peter,\u201d Blair\u00a0says. \u201cI knew him a little bit, so I sent him the script and said, \u2018Hey, we can talk if you want.\u2019 It turns out he knew the original and was a fan and really needed no translation. He got the tone immediately. I suspect once you know Peter is attached to a movie, it legitimizes things in a certain way. Then other people started coming on board quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPeter Dinklage and Macon Blair shooting \u201cThe Toxic Avenger.\u201d
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Legendary<\/p>\n

\n\tLuckily, once Blair secured his cast, he was able to film his vision without interference. When asked about any boundaries, he says he was given free rein by producers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was green lights the whole way through,\u201d Blair says. \u201cIf anything, they said, \u2018Let\u2019s go for it. We\u2019ll tell you when to tone it down,\u2019 and they never did. They were very encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough there were no limitations, Blair wasn\u2019t only interested in the film being a piece of transgressive art. He modified some elements from the original version \u2014\u00a0which was notorious for scenes where a child is murdered and a dog is killed \u2014\u00a0that he wasn\u2019t interested in reviving.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a matter of what\u2019s shocking or not shocking,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was simply what is funny to me, and honestly, there were things about the original that were not funny to me then and aren\u2019t funny to me now. I say that with great affection, but there were some things that I thought, \u2018Yeah, it\u2019s not really my thing.\u2019 But there were not any sort of cultural or timely conversations about, \u2018As of this date and time, you\u2019re no longer allowed to make jokes about X, Y and Z.\u2019 That never came up once.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne element that Blair wanted to keep was the undercurrent of sweetness, which is present in the original film via Claire, Toxie\u2019s girlfriend. In the remake, Toxie\u2019s relationship with a deceased girlfriend\u2019s teen son grounds the narrative.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile he\u2019s hesitant to reveal any type of plotlines he\u2019s thinking about for future installments, Blair would love to return to the \u201cToxic Avenger\u201d would again if he was able.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe straight answer is there\u2019s there\u2019s nothing concrete, and I don\u2019t know if there ever will be,\u201d he says. \u201cIf anybody were to ask me to talk about that, I would love to talk about it. I think there\u2019d be a lot more fun adventures to go on. The draw for me would be getting to work with that group of people again in front of and behind the camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt makes sense why he\u2019d be cagey about future installments, given the two-year wait from the 2023 world premiere at Austin\u2019s Fantastic Fest until the 2025 wide release. During this time, fans took to social media wondering if the film had been shelved or if fans would ever be able to see it. Blair says that he was confident things would work out, but it was still a stressful wait.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t anxious at all, because you just don\u2019t know,\u201d he says. \u201cI always had total faith in Legendary, and I was in contact with them and they were always working and talking with people. But I know it\u2019s a tall ladder, and there are people higher up. It did cross my mind that somebody may have the idea that this movie might be more valuable as a tax write-off than it would be as a release, outside of their control. It crossed my mind, and that made me feel nervous, but I did have faith that Legendary was going to work it out. It just took a minute. It was a weird time in the industry. The streamers were doing less and less. It\u2019s also a strange movie, and if something doesn\u2019t seem like a surefire crowdpleaser, straight down the middle of the road-type of release, I can understand how people might get cold feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the delay, Blair says he\u2019s thrilled that Toxie is getting a theatrical release \u2014\u00a0and believes Cineverse\u2019s success with another unrated series may have helped solidify the decision.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCineverse happened to be a group that did see potential,\u201d he says. \u201c\u2018This could be a crowd pleaser.\u2019 Maybe that\u2019s them coming off their expertise with the \u2018Terrifier\u2019 movies and things like that. Whatever it is, they had a particular angle on it, the material and also a way to market it to people that turned out to be just right. So in the end, the wait was worth it. There was a little bit of hand wringing in the meantime though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch \u201cThe Toxic Avenger\u201d trailer below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macon Blair saw the controversial 1984 film \u201cThe Toxic Avenger\u201d as many Millennials did: on a contraband videotape…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,25706,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-102276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-the-toxic-avenger","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}