In an industry founded on the notion that naked men sell like hotcakes, it may seem a little odd that one of the keys to Chip Daniels' success has been covering his models in clothes.
"Practically every one of Centaur's movies is themed with uniforms in one way or another," notes Daniels. "I have always felt that that is one of the hottest things in gay culture, a uniform of any kind on a man, whether it's UPS brown or soldier greens, cop or fireman uniforms, even a construction worker. Clothes are where eroticism starts with me, and the uniform is one of the biggest bangs that I've got in my erotic repertoire."
It has been a big bang too. Since starting in 1994 with Hot Cops and including such hits as Deep in the Brig, Hotter Than Hell, and Marine Crucible, Centaur's 32 films quickly gained respect for their quality. "We work with each movie to try and make it better, and we hope we shame some of these other movie companies into spending an extra buck or an extra day in editing," notes Daniels. "We're trying a little harder to treat this genre of entertainment as a legitimate genre of entertainment."
Better than any other company, Centaur has been able to capitalize on its quality through themed sequels. The Hot Cops series has four installments, while the newest release is Wild Rangers 3: Hot on Their Tail. Daniels will soon start shooting the third entry in the Man Academy series, and a sequel to the imaginative Time Cops is also planned.
"We don’t make a lot of movies like other companies. We try to put out three movies a year; we're lucky sometimes if we get one or two out," notes CEO Jack Hazzard. "We have developed a very exclusive clientele, one that buys every movie we make. It's that simple. And when they haven't heard from us in two or three months, the phone rings and the e-mails come in: 'Where's the next movie?!'"
The key to those rabid fans, Hazzard notes, is the attention to detail. "The big difference between our movies and other people's movies is we've always kept our uniform movies very authentic. We don't use the security guard uniform for the cop uniform, we don't let the models have long hair with a hat that pushes their hair down and it comes out the side and they're supposed to be in the military. We just don't tolerate that."
Daniels' next big project is the Civil War-themed Uprising. "I've decided to take a cue from Time Cops and return to the past and shoot a movie where all the uniforms will be authentic, as much as possible. The tents, the artillery, whatever is used will be authentic. My anachronism will, of course, be the condoms," he says with a laugh.
With almost its entire library out on DVD, Daniels has also compiled Collector's Edition features of its stars. Brock Masters, the stunning Centaur model with the killer smile and cock, was the first to get the treatment. (While Daniels doesn't like the often-misused term "exclusive," Masters is the true definition of what one is, helping Centaur cement its look and reputation.) The Sean Storm Collector's Edition also just hit the shelves, and out next year will be Volume 3, the Chip Daniels installment.
"In the long-scheme of things, there are two successful routes. One can make movies by the pound, or one can make movies that are precious to keep around, and that's the road that I chose from the beginning," says Daniels, adding that he adopted that philosophy while apprenticing under two of the best in the business: Matt Sterling and Steven Scarborough.
Daniels notes that Centaur is also looking for strong foreign lines and titles to distribute, as it did to huge success last year with the Cazzo Films production, Countdown.
Hazzard also points out that Centaur was probably the first gay company to stop selling its rights abroad, which it did five years ago. "Early on we sold rights, but we went and bought our rights all back," Hazzard explains. "Now it's pretty common, but we started down that path, and it was very successful for us."
And while Centaur has stayed on top of making its movies look the best with current technology ("I have always said that the one thing everybody will say when they remember Centaur is, 'Damn, those movies looked good!'" Daniels says), it has mostly steered clear of streaming video. Hazzard says they haven't put a movie on NakedSword in almost seven years, giving more incentive for customers to buy the videos and also look for titles in stores.
"We just move very slow in that direction. We're not so sure we want to do that. We're doing things a little differently than some of our competitors. And maybe they're doing the right thing and we're doing the wrong thing, I don't know. But we have definite thoughts about where you can get our product, what it's going to look like and how much it's going to cost. When we look at the numbers and we look at the client base, the client base buys everything we make. I think that's the heart of our success."
Contact info: 800-446-8843, CentaurFilms.com. Centaur is distributed by Marina Pacific: 800-999-5530, 818-503-7741 (CA), MarinaPacific.com.
