{"id":2477323,"date":"2026-06-26T18:47:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2477323"},"modified":"2026-06-26T18:47:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:47:42","slug":"lloyd-kaufman-on-how-iconic-troma-entertainment-birthed-the-mcu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/lloyd-kaufman-on-how-iconic-troma-entertainment-birthed-the-mcu\/","title":{"rendered":"Lloyd Kaufman on How Iconic Troma Entertainment ‘Birthed’ the MCU"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tAppearing on a screen straight from the legendary Troma Entertainment<\/a> headquarters in Long Island, New York, veteran producer and filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman<\/a> has both hands occupied: one is gripping a compact vape pen, the other holding a massive can of sugar-free energy drink. It would be a pretty standard sight for a busy producer, but even more impressive given that Kaufman is 80 years old, and cutting into lunch breaks to take calls coming from different time zones and respond to young assistants nipping in and out of his busy office with questions about several concurrent productions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKaufman founded the iconic Troma Entertainment in 1974 alongside Michael Herz, with the duo still helming what is now the longest-running independent film studio in history. The producer\u2019s legacy was honored late last week when his daughter flew to London to accept a Raindance Icon Award on behalf of her father, who remains so busy with work he couldn\u2019t quite make the trip. Looking back at his career with Variety <\/em>on the occasion of his Raindance award, the well-humored Kaufman jokes: \u201cRoger Corman is dead, Toby Hooper is dead, who else can they give awards to? I\u2019m the last one left!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTroma Entertainment specializes in low-budget independent films, focusing on horror and comedy and riffing off classic 1950s horror films by leaning into gore, farce, parody and provocation. The company is most well-known for 1984\u2019s \u201cThe Toxic Avenger,\u201d\u00a0 and is responsible for discovering major talent in the last half century, including James Gunn<\/a>, Oliver Stone, Billy Bob Thornton, Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Costner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTroma is a fan-fuelled company,\u201d notes Kaufman. \u201cThe only reason we\u2019re still in business, other than Michael Herz running the company, is because our fans from the very beginning have always been very young and quick adapters.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\u201cTromeo and Juliet,\u201d courtesy of Troma Entertainment<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe studio head recalls how David Schultz, now CEO of Vitagraph, pushed Troma into making DVDs \u201cwhen the machines hadn\u2019t even been in people\u2019s homes yet.\u201d \u201cWe were way out front. We had two or three good years. We got into video cassette very early, before anybody else, at least with the kind of movies we were making. \u2018Toxic Avenger\u2019 was a seminal movie of that era.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTwenty years ago or so, one of my daughters said streaming looked like a pretty interesting area in which to travel,\u201d he goes on. \u201cWe discussed it, and then launched Troma Now, which is still very small but grows slowly and people don\u2019t leave the platform. For once in 53 years, we have a somewhat predictable six months ahead of us. We know we can meet the payroll and keep doing what we do on the distribution end, which is very little.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked if he has hope for the future of the industry, Kaufman says, \u201cmainstream is frightened.\u201d \u201cFrom what I\u2019ve seen anecdotally, they don\u2019t last long. All suits walk around in cars they don\u2019t own, in big empty houses, huffing and puffing at restaurants that don\u2019t have phone numbers.\u201d The producer believes, however, that this makes for a great time for those who might be scrappy but hungry to enter an industry that is still more accessible today than it was when Troma first started.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou know, I think we are in a late-stage democracy time for capitalism and life in the States, which has reached its climax with Trump and what\u2019s happening in Europe and everywhere, but I still do believe a young person can make it,\u201d he says. \u201cThe bright side is that one can make a movie for $2,000 and it can be terrific. Academy Award-winning Sean Baker made a movie in 2004 called \u2018Take Out\u2019 about a Chinese delivery boy who\u2019s an illegal immigrant; he was way ahead. Baker infuses the film with comedy and pathos; it\u2019s a wonderful film. Then Baker started using cellphones with \u2018Tangerine,\u2019 and he\u2019s a big Troma fan. The point is: if people can read and write, they can make something.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\u201cThe Toxic Avenger,\u201d courtesy of Troma Entertainment<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tTroma was also pioneering in tapping into the comic book slash superhero genre, with its \u201cToxic Avenger\u201d series that started back in 1984. One of Kaufman\u2019s very own mentees, \u201cTromeo and Juliet\u201d co-writer James Gunn, is the big man at the helm of DC Comics. So how does Kaufman look at the legacy of the genre in the Marvel<\/a> Cinematic Universe era?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI went to Yale University and majored in Chinese Studies,\u201d he recalls when asked. \u201cThe one thing I got out of Yale, other than learning the rich kids had drugs, is Marvel Comics. That\u2019s when I discovered Marvel and Stan Lee. Once I graduated, we wrote at least a couple of scripts that never got made. He was a big help to Troma. He wrote the forward to one of my books in which he states that, in the same way that Spider-Man put a new face on the superhero comic book, \u2018Toxic Avenger\u2019 has done that with cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Troma Universe has very much, I think, birthed the Marvel Cinematic Universe,\u201d he notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of legacy, Kaufman is very much still working towards the future of Troma Entertainment, and is currently directing his latest, \u201cThe Power of Positive Murder.\u201d The film, a (very) loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky\u2019s classic \u201cCrime and Punishment,\u201d is in its final stages of shooting. \u201cWith \u2018The Power of Positive Murder,\u2019 the idea is more about a young Gen X man in America who has been going along believing in the American dream, who went to college, and now what can you do? You know, you\u2019ve got to murder your landlord [laughs]. It\u2019s a rather nihilistic film, and just to make sure it doesn\u2019t make money, we shot it in black and white.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKaufman ends the conversation in a characteristic self-deprecating note, stating he doesn\u2019t quite know if he has \u201cany real talent,\u201d but then leaning into earnestness to add: \u201cWhat we do have is a talent for recognizing talent. That has served us well, and also listening to young people as opposed to the ones we\u2019re supposed to be listening to. That\u2019s good advice, I think.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Appearing on a screen straight from the legendary Troma Entertainment headquarters in Long Island, New York, veteran producer and filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman has both hands occupied: one is gripping a compact vape pen, the other holding a massive can of sugar-free energy drink. It would be a pretty standard sight for a busy producer, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2477324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[41332,365397,23992,305487,487552,355947],"class_list":["post-2477323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-james-gunn","tag-lloyd-kaufman","tag-marvel","tag-mcu","tag-raindance-film-festival","tag-troma-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Lloyd-Kaufman-on-How-Iconic-Troma-Entertainment-Birthed-the-MCU.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2477323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2477325,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477323\/revisions\/2477325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2477324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2477323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2477323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2477323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}