Macon Blair on Filmmaking and the Long Road to Idiots

O'Shea Jackson Jr., Dave Franco, and Mason Thames appear in Idiots by Macon Blair, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute)

By Ramona Flume

Party people.

That's Macon Blair's answer, without hesitation, when asked whom he's hoping to reach with Idiots, his rowdy road trip comedy that premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and opens in theaters August 28.

We talk about it in terms of wanting people to feel like they've been to a really great rock show, adds Blair (The Toxic Avenger, i don't feel at home in this world anymore.) during a recent Zoom interview about his latest film. It's not gonna reinvent the wheel. But it is meant to be a really fun 90 minutes at the movies.

Idiots' plot hits that fast-moving target, too. A wildly unqualified and contentiously mismatched, accident-prone pair of misfits is hired to transport an ultra-wealthy, highly problematic teenager to rehab, turning a seemingly straightforward road trip into chaos, full of shock-and-awe and gut-wrenching laughs, all powered by a stellar, side-splitting ensemble of lead actors - Dave Franco, O'Shea Jackson Jr., and Mason Thames - plus scene-stealing support from Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Braun, and Kiernan Shipka. All to say, it's a ride-until-the-wheels-fall-off type of good time.

The making of the film, though, wasn't exactly a party. Blair and producer Alex Orr spent years trying to get the project finalized, financed, and off the ground. A fully cast version collapsed in pre-production at one point and the pair shelved the project for nearly a decade before reviving it. As much of a bummer as the first version falling apart was, in a weird way I'm kind of glad it happened, Blair says. Because I think this version of the movie is the one that was meant to be.

Below, we learn more about Blair, the unique chemistry that makes Idiots such a captivating watch, and what else went into this cinematic labor of love that is finally getting its theatrical release.

Tell us about the moment you found out Idiots would be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.

We shot the movie on a tight time frame and cut it very quickly, but we were still in the middle of finishing the movie when I got the call inviting me to the Festival. I sent a text to Dave and Alex, the two producers, trying to be all casual: We're going to Sundance. But they thought I was just doing positive visualization. They wrote back, Hell yeah we are. And I was like, Nah, man, we're going to Sundance. And they said, That's right, baby, let's keep working. It took like eight back-and-forth messages before I got through: Guys, listen to my fucking words. They finally got it and everybody was thrilled, but it was funny because at first they just thought I was psyching everybody up.

The chemistry between the actors was palpable onscreen - and offscreen at the 2026 Festival premiere. Everyone seemed like they were having a blast together. What was the vibe like on set?

Macon Blair attends the Idiots premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Sundance Film Festival)

Everyone was absolutely having a really good time. Some days were hard, but it was all grounded in everybody having a lot of fun with each other. There's still a text thread with the cast going, everybody checking in and hyping each other up. Whatever friendships developed - or were already in place - have hung together. My memory of [set] is simultaneously very blurry, because we were moving so fast and I was thinking about the next setup, but at the same time I was always aware of how grateful I felt to get to make a movie at all. But especially this one, where I'd had it in my hands for so long and wasn't able to get to do it, and there were moments of looking around like, This scene Alex and I were talking about 12 years ago - we're actually getting to do it now, with really great actors and a great crew. I felt very fortunate throughout the whole thing and tried to take time to always acknowledge that to myself.

(L-R) Lee Eddy, Macon Blair, Kiernan Shipka, Dave Franco, OShea Jackson Jr., and Nicholas Braun attend the Idiots premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

The sparks of dialogue in certain fast-paced scenes felt so natural. Was everything kept strictly scripted or was there room to improvise?

I think there was a little bit of both. We tried in a lot of cases to stay tight to the script, because everything was organized to get us to the next beat. But I also knew I'd be foolish not to take advantage of these actors, because they're all so good at spontaneously adding things, and it reflects well on the whole movie. The middle section is a bit of a detective story, so we didn't have a lot of room to veer into far-off tangents, but since the whole movie is basically the two guys arguing, letting them just argue was a big part of it. That texture is almost impossible to script. It's got to be people talking over each other, sputtering, not saying their words correctly, being messy and a little incorrect. I tried to make sure they had space to try stuff like that, and a lot of it ended up in the movie.

I really like movies where the dialogue is going so fast that you almost feel like you might have missed something, and it's kind of OK if you did. It's not necessarily about the words being said - it's more about the vibe in the room of two people shouting over each other. When Dave and O'Shea get into their first big fight in the hotel room, I would just let them go, because they'd keep finding new ways to one-up each other and insult each other. You only really hear about 60% of it, but it's still so

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