‘The Toxic Avenger’ director reacts to ‘unreleasable’ label (exclusive)

The road any movie takes toward theaters isn’t always a straight line. In the case of The Toxic Avenger, a modern reimagining of the 1984 cult classic, it was more of a zigzag full of sharp, diverging paths.

Starring Peter Dinklage as Winston Gooze, a janitor who’s transformed into a super-powered mutant after falling into a vat of toxic waste, the unrated film shot in Bulgaria in 2021 and made its world premiere at Austin’s Fantastic Fest in 2023. However, it struggled in the ensuing years to find distribution. It was only earlier this year that Cineverse announced it would finally carry the movie over the finish line to the big screen, starting Aug. 29.

At one point, The Toxic Avenger became known as the “unreleasable” movie, thanks to a quote provided to The World of Reel in 2024 by an unnamed producer. “I was kind of like, ‘S—! I hope that’s not true,'” director Macon Blair shares with Entertainment Weekly. “I wasn’t sure if they were saying ‘unreleasable’ because nobody wants to buy it or ‘unreleasable’ because it’s so gross. It’s not that gross. It’s kind of warmhearted. It’s got some gross stuff in it, but if we’re comparing the gore score to something like Terrifier, it’s not even in the same universe. Nobody ever said that to me directly, but it did make me bite my nails a little bit.”

Star Taylour Paige, who plays J.J. Doherty, part investigative reporter and part vigilante detective, agrees the “unreleasable” moniker is like a badge of honor that may have, in some ways, helped the movie. (Come see the “unreleasable” film!)

“I’m happy it is finally coming out,” Paige comments. “I think when people watch it, they’ll see that it deserves to and that they’re happy it exists in the world. I think we need things that hold our hand as we process the ugliness and toxicity in the world, but also we should still be laughing along the way.”

The Toxic Avenger cast and crew now head to San Diego for the international Comic-Con extravaganza as the first unrated horror (or horror-adjacent) movie to host its own panel in the coveted space of Hall H, a distinction Blair only heard about during this very interview. (“It’s very exciting, and I’m thrilled about it,” he says.) The filmmaker, Paige, and Dinklage will be joined on stage during their Thursday night panel by Jacob Tremblay (Wade, the son struggling to forge a bond with his dad, Winston), Elijah Wood (villain Fritz Garbinger), and Lloyd Kaufman (co-founder of Troma Entertainment).

“It is quite absurd and what we all are collectively going through,” Paige describes of Blair’s vision. “Also, I’m very much interested personally in the individual. This is an individual story, and it’s so specific. It’s a really human story in the most absurd iteration.”

In the story Blair wrote, Winston, who works at a chemical factory, transforms into Toxie, a green-skinned mutant who used his super strength and radioactive mop to fight criminals. That includes Kevin Bacon as corrupt corporate overlord Bob Garbinger, as well as Wood’s Fritz, Bob’s brother who runs a gang of lunatic henchmen called Killer Nutz.

Despite Toxie’s superhero antics, if anyone in the film is an action hero, Blair says it would be Paige’s J.J. “She’s the one that’s, from the opening scene, taking action and putting the pedal to the metal,” he explains. “And she, in a roundabout way, gives Winston an example of how to act and where to go. It’s not a romantic relationship. In a weird way, it’s like she’s the superhero and he’s the sidekick. I mean, in the movie he’s the hero, of course, but the dynamic is that she’s fully formed as an ass kicker from the beginning, and he picks up on that as the movie goes.”

Paige remembers “jumping off of s—, rolling down things, getting dirty” during the filming of The Toxic Avenger. “J.J. is trying to avenge her family who was killed,” the actress, also known for Zola and the upcoming It: Welcome to Derry, says. “She’s like the brain. She worked under her mentor for so long, trying to figure out how to get back at these people who have done such horrific things. It’s like a divine accident that [J.J. and Toxie] bump into each other.”

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Paige emphasizes the absurdist tone of the movie. The trailers alone show Toxie slicing off an armed robber’s jaw with his toxic mop like butter. Perhaps it’s material like that that made some distributors wary. “It’s nerve-racking, of course, because you want it to come out,” Blair comments on that gestation process.

The filmmaker admittedly wasn’t involved in the distribution deal-making but would receive updates from the Legendary Entertainment team. “It landed at the perfect place,” he says of Cineverse. “They get the vibe of it, and they like it for what it is.”

Perhaps the “unreleasable” branding ended up, in a roundabout way, helping the film by creating intrigue. “If that’s the case, thank you, dudes,” Blair responds. “I appreciate it very much.”