Hot House Entertainment founder Steven Scarborough has done a good job of staying off-camera, but one of his rare appearances occurs in Justice, the studio's biggest-budgeted film to date, releasing in September.
"Yeah, I’m in it… which is the part that I hated," says Scarborough. "I play the judge. I had a lot of dialogue and it took me a long time to get through the dialogue. I don’t know why I agreed to do it. They all kind of pushed me into it. It was fun, but it also gives me a new appreciation for these kids having to learn these lines and say them with conviction, with some level of believability."
Big-budget Justice is only one of many new developments at the company, which has firmly established itself as one of the biggest players in the business. Another is that San Francisco-based Hot House has just moved out of its Hayes Valley office and into a new space in Potrero Hill.
"It seems that we’re in a much more creative space than we’ve been in the last few years," Scarborough says. "It’s been very productive for us. We’ve increased our production and release schedule. We’re interviewing directors, and we’re also interviewing for additional editors."
The move pushed Hot House from 2,000 square feet of office space to 8,500, with another 6,400 in a nearby studio that was home to the last four productions.
"It’s brought a greater organization. I don’t know of any other studio that has as much professional equipment as we do," Scarborough says. "It can be very demoralizing moving in and out of a location: to move in, shoot all day long and then to move out that much stuff. I’m a control freak when I’m shooting, so it really gives me the level of control that I want with the light, with the background, with the props. This has allowed us a real model area, a real big wardrobe area, a big nice office for digital asset management, and then lots and lots of shooting space."
Scarborough is also relieved to have two large conference rooms to allow for a more creative, friendly space for promotional campaigns and movies. Not that the studio was hurting, coming off Best Leather Video wins at the GAYVN and Grabby Awards for The Missing, as well as another Grabby for Best Fetish Video (Twisted). Following newer hits like At Your Service, Butch Alley, and Trunks 2, Scarborough has turned his attention to an ambitious fall slate, headlined by Shane Rollins' star turn in Justice.
"I rarely shoot dialogue movies. Generally, it’s not what I think my hardcore loyalist audience expects, but we try to do something different every now and then. Justice has a lot of dialogue in it, and after working with the dialogue very carefully, I just have to say Shane Rollins is fabulous to work with," Scarborough says.
"We were talking about it yesterday on the set, how lucky we were that we made the decision to cast him. He worked every day for nine days straight. He’s in prison, he gets roughed up by the cops, there’s a big wrestling scene, and he gets fucked by everybody: the cops, lawyer, the parole board, all the way down the line, everybody just fucks him, so it’s pretty rough. But we cast him because we knew that he, more than anyone, could handle the sex part of it. But also, his disposition and his professionalism really came through. His acting was just fantastic, so we’re really excited about that."
Also in the works are Black and Blue, a leather/ Levi's themed set that will see separate releases in October and November, with a box set planned by Christmas. "It’s dead-on for what our audience expects from us. Blue was once again one of those charmed sets."
In the pipeline is another Trunks sequel, and an eventual follow-up to The Missing. While David Lamm, director of the two well-received Twisted films, has no films planned (he will be moving to Europe and possibly starting his own production company), Hot House has welcomed back Wolfgang Bang to direct more films for the heavier Club Inferno line.
In addition, a Hot House issue of Men magazine will be out in November, while Bruno Gmünder has a Hot House-only issue of Porn Up, with a second book (following last year's Hot) on the way. A revamped website has also reinvigorated the company. In development for two years, Hot House has been rolling out new sections in phases, starting with the store and Video on Demand sections, with a revamped membership area coming in September.
"The new site is really slick, and what it does is give us a lot of marketing information about our customers. And it integrates beautifully with our other partners like Maleflixxx and some others," Scarborough says. "This new site doesn’t just reflect our retail site, it reflects an entire business change for us."
Contact Info:800-884-4687; HotHouse.com.
