Summer leads people to the beaches, the mountains and the movies. Hollywood, knowing that, has long made it their prime season for blockbusters. This year the adult movie industry is following suit with its own string of big-gun releases waiting to be grabbed by retailers and marketed to eager consumers.
An impressive lineup of big-budget features is scheduled for release before the end of summer - Indian summer, that is, which coincides with AVN's Sept. 30 deadline for awards consideration.
(Big-budget in porn, by the way, usually means $100,000 and up plus a shooting schedule of four or more days.) Kicking off the parade was Laurent Sky's Raw Desire, released in June. The Sky World production is distributed by Club Jenna through Vivid Entertainment Group. "It's a really big project," the French-born Sky told AVN. "It took six months to make. The budget was $136,000, my own money." After an initial distribution agreement with Hustler was aborted, he took the movie to Jenna Jameson and Jay Grdina, who snapped it up immediately for Club Jenna.
Sky was a much in-demand adult industry photographer before he turned to video and broke through with his critically acclaimed three-part Fetish series for Ninn Worx in 2003-04.
But Raw Desire, he said, without undue modesty, surpasses not only his previous work but goes "beyond anything done in this industry." He admits he did it "a little bit to show off: This is what we can do at Sky World."
It's not just a video, he cautions, but a "multimedia" event - "slick, super-edgy and super-hard. It has graphics, CGI shots, animation, music video" - as well as super-hardcore sex. "In the first scene a girl comes out and chops up the set with a chainsaw, and then does anal in four positions. Sexually we can compete with any gonzo company." He added that it also makes a political statement about "very important issues for this country."
The stars include Teagan Presley, Dillan Lauren, Boo Delicious, Felix Vicious and Ramona.
Part of it was shot in Prague, where Sky constructed sets in studios used by mainstream filmmakers. The editing took two and a half months, "with big special effects." He boasts of the CGI work that cost a thousand bucks per second. "We're doing things nobody does, that are different and harder to do," he said.
Sky couldn't be happier with his Club Jenna deal, which calls for six movies, each over $100,000. "With Club Jenna I am completely independent," he said. "It's more than a business relationship. We think the same way. I'll never find a better company for me, for my visions."
Shaping up as the biggest of all the blockbusters is Pirates, a co-production of Digital Playground and Adam & Eve. It will most likely also be the summer's final blockbuster since at press time in June it was still being shot.
DP will have retail distribution, Adam & Eve the mail order sales, and they're splitting the budget -which matches the epic proportions of its story.
"I'm looking at my spread sheets now, and I see that this could be the biggest budget film out there," co-owner Samantha Lewis told AVN in May, "and we're not done yet." The DP crew was scheduled to wrap things up by June 10. Even with such a late date, they are still aiming for an end of September release.
Adam & Eve's public relations director Katy Zwolerin called the production costs "spectacular. It's an epic budget," she agreed, declining to go into details.
Pirates' all-star cast is led by Adam & Eve contract star Carmen Luvana, who shares top billing with DP's killer crew of exclusives: Jesse Jane, Janine, Teagan Presley, Devon. Austyn Moore, Adam & Eve's new contract girl, is also featured, along with Jenaveve Jolie. Evan Stone, who has a fondness for pirate garb off-screen, and Tommy Gunn, AVN's reigning Best Male Newcomer, are the lead buccaneers.
DP co-owner Joone is the director and co-writer. Everything, including the behind the scenes footage, was shot in High Definition.
"It has a real feel of real Pirates," Lewis enthused. "Joone did a tremendous amount of research into the way things looked in the 1700s." She said that the interior sets were painstakingly recreated in period style.
Exteriors were shot on an actual pirate ship. There are only a few around, and DP got the best - the one used by Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean 2, which wasn't available until late May.
The longer than usual (16-plus days) shooting schedule was necessitated in part by the battle scenes, which make extensive use of special effects, which in turn call for an unusual amount of costly green-screen process work.
Will it be worth the expense? The producers think so. "We're really excited," said Adam & Eve's Zwolerin.
Vivid Entertainment Group has always been the most blockbuster-friendly studio, and the summer of 2005 will yield one of their biggest ever.
Hot on the heels of Paul Thomas' remake of his own The Masseuse comes his fresh take on one of porn's most revered classics, Gerard Damiano's Devil in Miss Jones from 1972. Savannah Samson plays Miss Jones, Jenna Jameson the Devil, and in a heartwarming nod to tradition, the original star, Georgina Spelvin, makes a cameo appearance.
Other cast members include Roxanne Hall, Rachel and Rob Rotten, Jessica Jaymes, Dick Smothers Jr. and Nick Manning. There's not only a lengthy orgy scene but a full allotment of anals, d.p.s and facials.
Director Thomas told AVN that it's "very, very different from the original version." Like The Masseuse, it was shot on film. "PT says this is his best movie ever - and you know what, he may be right," said Vivid's production chief Marci Hirsch.
Vivid will release it at the tail end of the season, September 28.
Another major film project comes from Ninn Worx/Pure Play Media. Michael Ninn's Catherine is as eagerly anticipated as anything in this provocative director's career. Pre-publicity calls it "the story of a haunting woman and the story of a woman haunted" - and the image of star Audrey Hollander in the ads is haunting indeed. In this dreamlike feature, the action shifts from the 20th to the 15th century and back again.
According to April Storm, Pure Play's public relations manager, story scenes were shot on a Hollywood soundstage, with a mainstream movie crew. A few weeks later, crew and some cast took off for Budapest to shoot the sex, most of which involves European talent.
Ninn was still in Hungary when this article was written and unavailable for comment. But he has written that the movie deals with "a woman desperate for the love she thought she married ... a woman of slowly deteriorating sanity and desperation." It's the second time he has worked with Hollander, whom he calls "without a doubt the most powerful sexual performer in our industry today."
Release date is early September.
Wicked Pictures always seem to have a blockbuster in the works, and this summer they're releasing three.
Right upfront is a new "epic comedy" from Jonathan Morgan, Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre." Like its award-winning predecessor Space Nuts, it will be a two-DVD set. It stars Stormy Daniels, Jessica Drake and Keri Sable. The male leads are Voodoo and Eric Masterson. Morgan, who was also co-writer, shot it over eight days.
Daniel Metcalf, Wicked's director of public relations, told AVN that just as Space Nuts was a parody of Spaceballs, in turn a parody of Star Wars, so Camp Cuddly Pines is a riff on Scary Movie, which spoofed horror flicks.
Wicked director Brad Armstrong will be represented this summer by two movies: Sold, a sequel to The Collector, with Jessica Drake reprising her role from that movie. Like its predecessor it was shot on film. It boasts the first sex scene Keri Sable did for Wicked, a threeway with Drake and Armstrong.
Armstrong's other big summer release is Eternity. Metcalf calls it a "Conquest-style romance," (referring to porn's last pirate epic, the Jenna Jameson vehicle from almost a decade ago). It is set in the 19th century, with elaborate costumes and swordfights. Metcalf said that, for the first time, Armstong shot with a mainstream film crew. It stars Wicked Girls Daniels, Drake and Sable.
These movies, all with special DVD packaging, will be released in consecutive weeks in September, beginning right after Labor Day with Camp Cuddly Pines.
Wicked actually kicked off its summer blockbuster campaign in June with Lovers Lane, an Armstrong feature starring Devinn Lane. It was a bigger than usual production with a long shooting schedule, several different locations, and a sex scene between Lane and Randy Spears that the longtime Wicked contract girl called her hottest ever.
Features are something new for Red Light District, the quintessential gonzo company, and owner David Joseph has created Red Light District Films to produce them. He plans to release one a month starting in August. To kick things off, he turned to Hall of Fame director James Avalon and let him shoot James Avalon's Darkside on Super 16 film, an instant budget-raiser. (Subsequent releases will be shot on video.)
"This is going to be an incredible show," director Avalon predicted. "I think we've invented a whole new niche - gonzo-style sex scenes worked into a feature. I'm already trying to construct stories that lend themselves to that."
Avalon shot for four days, working closely with Red Light District's Vince Vouyer on the hardcore sex scenes, "just to keep it in the Red Light style," Avalon said.
The plan, according to Vouyer, is for the movie to have a "James Avalon look," along with an involving story and topnotch performances, but with the kind of sex scenes Red Light fans have come to expect. That includes, he said, multiple partners in every scene and lots of cumshots, facials, cum-swapping and general "messiness."
The speculative fantasy-style story is about a memory transplant that goes awry. A mayor's wife gets the memory of a promiscuous tart. She goes around fucking everything in sight and showing up at sex club orgies, much to the distress of her husband (Randy Spears).
The lead is played by Penny Flame, in her first role with extensive dialogue. Avalon and Voyeur both lavished praise on her. "As an actress and a sex actress," Avalon said, "she's the best I've come across." Vouyer praised her erotic intensity in three scenes, even though the frequent anal action is left to the other girls in the cast, including Holly Wellin, Kelly Wells and Missy Monroe.
The story has its share of action and violence. "We had the weapons guys come in so we could fire a few rounds," Avalon said. Herschel Savage, in one of the slimeball roles he excels at, wore pellets that spurted blood when he was shot in the chest.
Fantasy and action also figure heavily in Dark Angels 2: Bloodlines, from New Sensations. Owner Scott Taylor knew it was time to revisit his horror-porn classic of 2000 when he found that director Nic Andrews was available. He said he wouldn't have dreamed of making a Dark Angels sequel without him.
Andrews began his adult career with New Sensations, shooting gonzo scenes, and he soon graduated to features, thanks to his formal film training. His peak achievement was Dark Angels, which garnered him an AVN Best Director award. After leaving the company, he spent some highly productive years making features for Digital Playground.
So for Nic and New Sensations, Taylor said, "This was a coming home in a very big way. I'm thrilled at how excited Nic is about this. I love it when people are passionate about a project."
The movie's budget was double that of the original. "This is the biggest budget I've worked with on a single movie ever," Taylor said. The money, he said, was "warranted by the success of the original. It has the history and fan base of a landmark movie. It took a while for it to pay off, but it did it in spades."
Andrews shot for 10 days, with a few added pickup dates. As the female lead he cast newcomer Sunny Lane, a petite, pretty strawberry blonde.
Barrett Blade, a frequent Andrews collaborator, plays Draken, leader of the vampire gang. Evan Stone returns as a bloodsucker, as does Dillon Day as the good cop. The music, makeup and special effects creators from the original are also back.
The movie was shot, edited and mastered in High Definition format and will be released in both HD and SD (standard definition) formats.
Release is set for late August or early September.
Finally, a movie with a lower budget but a blockbuster attitude. Producer-director Nicholas Steele calls The Edge Runner "not one of my really big films. It was $70,000, not $175,000 like Dinner Party 3 and Rawhide." Still, this action-packed feature with a Motocross setting, released in June, is bound to make a summer splash in stores.
Like all of Steele's Ultimate Pictures productions, it was shot in High Definition Widescreen. He used professional motocross drivers, shooting at real tracks. Lauren Phoenix, Lezley Zen, Brooke, Cytherea and others face off against Randy Spears, Steven St. Croix and Dale Dabone. It also includes several outdoor sex scenes which, Steele said, "look great in High Def."
The movie was Steele's first Ultimate release under his new distribution deal with Bob East's Lava Releasing.
Which of these top-dollar projects will ultimately do the big numbers in terms of sales? It's up to the fans of summer to decide.
Even studios without big budget blockbusters have intriguing summer releases. Here's a sampling of just a few.
Evil Angel is releasing John Stagliano's first new movie in a year in September. It's Ass Adoro, a gonzo production with four new scenes shot in Brazil. Also coming in September - just in time for the awards deadline - is Part 2 of Buttman Comics Presents: Vault of Whores, directed by Tricia Devereaux and starring Lauren Phoenix, Katja Kassin and newcomer Taryn Thomas. In August, Rocco Siffredi will become the latest Evil Angel director to have his own she-male movie, still untitled at press time. And Jonni Darkko's Tiffany & Cumpany has Tiffany Mynx in every scene.
Hustler has scheduled Jack the Zipper's Squealer - described as a XXX combination of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deliverance - for July. Coming in August is Poontang Clan, a new series with street-wise Asian girls, followed by Tom Zupko's first Hustler release, Butt BlASSted.
Metro Interactive launches Loaded Digital, a new gonzo imprint, in July. On the label are Bridgette Kerkove's movies, starting with Ass Jumper, Legal and Hot and Oral Antics, plus Rob Rotten's punk rock-themed Fuck the System, and Surrender the Booty, Metro's take on pirate porn. Also on Loaded Digital are two new titles in the interactive Virtual Dreams line, with Michelle Thorn and Alicia Rhodes, and Who's Next, a new-girl series.
Sin City is moving away from the Hollywood-style features they've been releasing over the years, according to general manager Mark Snyder. Instead they're developing an edgier kind of gonzo-feature hybrid where the story is driven along by visuals and sex scenes. The first is Jim Powers' Sodom, to be released this month at the VSDA show.
VCA released Kill Girl Kill 2 July 2. They have high hopes for New York director Joe Gallant's Contract Girl in June, followed by Ultravixens NYC in July. But their biggest summer release of all, said general manager Peter Reynolds, might just be the new Britney Rears movie, untitled at press time, but scheduled for August.
Video Team returns to its feature-film roots with an interracial sex comedy, Outta Sight. As owner Christian Mann tells it, there's this black janitor (Mr. Marcus) at a snooty girls' college who stumbles on a chemical that makes him invisible, allowing him to screw the white babes. It's a "medium budget" movie, Mann said. He feels it will do well on cable outlets and with that important market segment that still wants story-line features. Release will be on Sept. 29.
