FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - PZP Productions has cancelled production of Papa Mio, the studio's planned musical parody of the Broadway show and movie Mamma Mia. PZP's Peter Z Pan said the decision to shelve the project was based on "the tanking economy and other factors that are plaguing the gay porn industry right now.
"As the budget kept growing and growing and the economy kept tanking and tanking, it became very apparent to me that we could no longer afford to produce the movie the way I wanted to do it," Pan said. "I had an option to do a cheapy version of it and slap the title ‘Pappa Mio' on it, but I didn't want to pull one over on our wonderful fans who have supported us all these years. And it wouldn't have been the same funny script I wrote."
Instead, Pan said PZP would produce the first movie in a new series: Twinks Finally 18. As he explained it, the new series will comprise hybrids of traditional twink sex, gonzo movies, bad reality shows and the camp fans have come to expect from the studio that gave birth to The Da Vinci Load, BeTwinked and the Grabby Award-winning Oliver Twink.
"It just wasn't feasible for us, a small independent studio, to produce big-budget porn in this horrid economy, when other small studios are going under every day," Pan said. "We are all in a perilous predicament in the porn industry right now, and we can't just blame the economy, either. The illegal file-sharing sites and tube sites are hurting us all badly. They are a plague upon our industry, and I don't care if I am trashed for saying that. I mean, why should customers pay for our movies, when they can just download them illegally online?
"I visit these tube sites every day and find my content posted without permission," he continued. "Yeah, they take the movies down after an email from my attorney, but the damage has been done. Now don't get me wrong: There are very responsible tube sites out there that are doing things right and legally - like Xtube, RocketTube and the new OgleMe from Badpuppy, to name a few. It's the unscrupulous ones that are giving the good ones a bad name.
"I just want to know what's going to happen when these sites run out of content to steal; after they have put us all out of business. Web surfers will be left with nothing but badly lit clips of Bubba in Bumkfuck, Kansas - you know, with the bad skin - jacking off in front of his webcam while his dog scratches his balls in the background."
Pan said PZP will return to making bigger films like BeTwinked in the future; however, the studio plans to produce reasonably budgeted smaller films until things get better in the industry, he said.
"If it sounds like I'm whining and bitching, that's because I am," he said. "We're all hurting in the industry right now, and many smaller companies will not be around by this time next year. A lot of them have too much pride to admit that, but as we all know, I have no shame. And I'll be dammed if PZP will be one of those companies. We're here for the duration, but we must play smart to survive.
"As I told a twinky model recently - who had the balls to demand a ludicrous amount of money from us after agreeing to do a film for the going rate in South Florida - this is not the same industry of a year ago. And you have to face the reality of the situation."
Twinks Finally 18 #1 will be filmed in October for a Valentine's Day 2009 release through Marina Pacific. A special edition of Oliver Twink is planned for release on Blu-ray Disc in 2009.
PZP's content also is available online at BoysOnTheWeb.
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