Antigua’s Todd Blatt Works the High End

Todd Blatt, the head of Antigua Pictures, secures overseas licensing agreements for a short list of clients, including Vivid, Club Jenna and VCA. It’s the high end of the adult industry, and he and his worldwide customers have found it a mutually rewarding place to be.

Through Vivid Europe he “facilitates product” from Vivid Entertainment Group and Club Jenna to foreign distributors. “We put everything in the local languages and supply it to the local distributors for them to put out on a royalty basis,” he said during a recent phone conversation.

“We take all the Vivid and the Club Jenna, and we dub it into 11 languages. And we replicate it in the PAL format so we don’t have any cross-importation problems. That’s the safest way to get solid distribution in Europe.”

There’s lots of finished NTSC product sold abroad, he said — most of it wall to wall sex or gonzo — but the only people who can buy it are those with the more expensive DVD players, or computers, which can also play it. The majority of foreign consumers are “the guys who buy the regular cheaper players.”

Higher-end product, he said, gets “a much bigger saturation into the market when we have the local standards and the local languages. The youth likes to see everything in English, but the older people watching a Vivid or a Club Jenna movie, there’s enough dialogue in there that they actually want to know what the story is.”

An important trend he noticed at last fall’s Venus Show in Berlin is “a lot of the companies trying to get back to the high-end market. I was shocked to see Red Light shooting on film and now signing Michael Ninn [for distribution]. I see some of these gonzo companies really going after that market that Vivid and Club Jenna have controlled for a long period of time. I see a trend going back toward movie-making in the adult arena, not just gonzo.”

Licensing this kind of product pays off, Blatt said, “because then you get broadcast deals. I don’t see a lot of the gonzo stuff playing on the broadcast channels in Germany or France. If you have good content, you can generate pretty good revenue with the broadcast market now.”

Much of Club Jenna’s success abroad comes from Jameson’s personal popularity. “She’s just as successful everywhere in the world,” Blatt said. “We have Vivid Canada set up; she’s the engine that drives that locomotive. Vivid Japan set up, same way. Vivid Brazil, Vivid Mexico, Vivid Australia we’re doing. Jenna is really used as the engine that drives all those companies.”

Antigua Pictures has been in business since 1986, with Blatt running the company since 1989. A few years ago he began to release gonzo product domestically on his Antigua and Fatt Entertainment labels, whose product he licenses abroad.

He also reps Sky World, which is all-sex but extremely high end. “Laurent [Sky] does a fabulous job,” Blatt said. “I just started licensing his first title, Raw Desire, and we’re doing pretty well with it. It’s being distributed through Vivid Europe.

“I also do a lot of licensing for the classic titles, like Devil in Miss Jones. Arrow [Films], and the old VCA library, I’m very successful with those. Deep Throat — I did a lot of licensing on that picture. There’s still a true value in the old classics.”

Blatt is one of three brothers who have made careers in adult sales. Brother Jon works at Antigua doing domestic sales. Brother Scott does foreign sales with Alante, which, Blatt said, “is basically on top of the NTSC finished product market. He has a good lineup of the gonzo content from America.”

As for new accounts of his own, “It all depends on what kind of content they have. We’re so busy facilitating setting up all the output deals we have all over the world that I don’t have real room to take on other people. But high-end features? Sure.”

Blatt closed our conversation with a tip of his hat to “guys like [Club Jenna’s] Jay [Grdina] and [Vivid’s] Steven [Hirsch], who are forward-thinking people looking to help grow this industry and not just take the money off the table. It’s a pleasure to do business with guys like that.”

For sales or distribution inquiries call 818.709.7400 or email [email protected]. On the web, visit antiguapictures.com.