New York City has inspired many pieces of entertainment. From movies (Working Girl, The Godfather, In America) to television (Taxi, Friends, and, of course, Sex and the City), the Big Apple has provided entertainers with more than enough fodder for drama, comedy, and just about everything in between—including great sex.
Just ask porn auteur Michael Lucas, whose East Coast-based triple-X entity Lucas Entertainment (www.lucasentertainment.com; one of the few Adult companies not located in California) is situated smack-dab in the heart of Manhattan and produces titles that are often informed by the hustle and bustle of New York.
“We produce movies under a unique vision and style: fresh, new, diverse, New York,” Lucas says. “I have a great staff, the best public relations department anywhere, a little bit of ingenuity, and everything the great city of New York represents.”
The company, which emerged on the scene in 1998, was in fact created as a de facto celebration of the city.“Lucas Entertainment was founded with the intent of showcasing the city’s diversity of types and ethnicities found nowhere else in the world,” says Alex Poole, content manager and marketing director for the company’s Web site, LucasEntertainment.com.
“Over the years, [we have] come to represent a stamp of top quality and high regard among gay Adult film aficionados worldwide.” It’s something they’ve managed to do through creating four unique lines of product: From the sumptuous videography of the ever-popular Fire Island Cruising collection and the European flavor of the aptly-titled International collection, to the ingenuity of the Auditions collection (a “lo-fi”solo series of scene shot specifically for the Web, with highlights eventually released on DVD), and the romantic, multiculturalism of the company’s most prominent and thriving seriesof all, the Manhattan Collection (films shot in the city with emphasis on the sexy experiences that city-life can bring), Lucas Entertainment has shown that it has what it takes to be a champion in Adult entertainment.
Of course, as most porn fans will tell you, a superior Adult film is only as good as its models, and it doesn’t hurt that Lucas also has a good eye for finding hot new talent. “We’re consistently the biggest discoverer of fresh faces on the East Coast,” Lucas boasts. (And he has the bragging rights. Consider just this cursory line-up of talent first seen in the frames of a Lucas-directed skinflick: Wilson Vasquez, Chad Hunt, Richard Black, Rob Ramos, Carlos Morales, Marco Rochelle, Rick Gonzales, and Lucas’ latest discovery, Wilfried Knight. My computer is overheating as I type this.) Gorgeously shot and usually relationship-centered, Lucas’ movies have garnered heaps of praise from industry critics, and snagged a multitude of awards along the way (including several GayVN and Grabby trophies).
The company, Lucas notes, offers “real, hot sex between real, hot men of all ages, nationalities, types, and backgrounds,” and is unique because, he adds, “It feels like you’re actually a part of the action. We don’t edit too much out. We keep action going and try to catch everything while the heat is on, rather than dragging things on for hours and hours then polishing with music and fancy editing.”
Lucas says it was always his intention to open his own company “since day one of working in the Adult industry,” and adds that he is very happy with the reception Lucas Entertainment has received. From the release of the company’s first title, 1998’s Back in the Saddle, Lucas says, “We had a lot of support from reviewers, magazine publishers, and fans of gay porn. We were a success practically from the very first day.” Since Lucas relied on his own investments instead of bank loans, he says he “didn’t have to worry too much” about taking too many risks. As other successful titles have followed (in 2003 alone, Lucas Entertainment movies were represented in almost every major GayVN Awards category, including director and Best Film), the company has consistently given long-established companies a run for their money as one of the most sizzling providers of gay Adult entertainment in the industry. Lucas claims there were no hurdles to getting things off the ground (other than nothing that, “This industry is largely full of snakes and liars, and I had to learn to filter out all that crap and just do my own thing.”), and says that he has no time to worry about what others think of him. To that end, he adds that he feels no pressure to compete with others in the business, offering, simply, “They do their thing and I do mine.”
One of the things that Lucas Entertainment does so well, in fact, is put its product out there. This year, after relying on IMD for distribution, Lucas parted ways with the troubled company and started his own line, Lucas Distribution, which is also responsible for releasing all Lucas Kazan titles. But, while that line is doing well in getting VHS and DVD titles into stores, Lucas and company don’t rely on traditional outlets alone to get their work seen. They are as dependent upon the Web as they are upon retail stores, with all footage debuting almost immediately on the company’s full-service Web site, then being serviced to the sites Naked Sword, AEBN, and Maleflixx within a year of their release (“We have great relationships with all three of these companies,” Lucas says, “and choose to only send our content to them.”).
Earlier this year, Lucas started offering his catalog of DVD titles for Internet streaming, and was so impressed with the demand that he appointed Production Manager Poole to become the full-time developer, content manager, and marketer for the site (which, incidentally, was recently nominated by Cybersocket magazine as Best Video Company Site). The site is indeed impressive, with Poole offering updates and additions almost daily – including photos, streaming content, and more general expansions. “We have a brilliant Web site that is representative of our whole company and its product,” Poole says. “I’ve successfully established LucasEntertainment.com as the official one-stop for all things Lucas Entertainment. You won’t find better prices on our DVDs and you definitely won’t get a better value out of a paid Adult membership Web site anywhere.” And DRM fanatics can take note: All material (including the Auditions series) is available in both WMP and QuickTime, Poole says, “so as not to alienate anyone.”
The work has paid off. As Poole proudly claims, “In the past couple months our traffic has quadrupled, membership has tripled, and the consumer feedback on our site has been overwhelmingly positive. I sincerely believe now that we have the best studio Web site out there, straight or gay.” Of course, the company is also looking forward to the day when technology makes the downloading of full-length features much easier and convenient. “The digital downloading of content – especially full-length titles – is just around the corner and will eventually replace the need to buy physical copies of things like DVDs,” he says. “We’re waiting for super-fast Internet connections to get cheaper on a consumer level, so that no one has to wait 20 hours to download a two-hour movie over the Internet.”
Poole also says he is excited about the possibilities of downloading to small devices like cell phones and PDAs. “Where I see technology heading is in regard to large-memory capacity getting smaller, thus being able to carry around a movie – or several – in your phone or PDA, from which you could connect it is a TV anywhere and play them. When that happens, we’re ready for it.”
In the meantime, Lucas Entertainment will stick with what it knows best – sex and the city. “Audiences want to see hot guys doing more than just the vanilla things in exotic locales like New York City and Fire Island – exactly what we’re giving them,” Lucas proclaims. “My productions are a unique contribution to this industry; I don’t feel like I’m just adding to what is already out there.” Of course, it never hurts to have big goals either. As Lucas adds, “I’d like to put the men of New York on the gay Adult map.”
From the looks of things, it appears that he’s already well on his way.
