HOLLYWOOD — Ron Jeremy and other adult stars appear in National Lampoon's Homo Erectus, opening this weekend in limited release at AMC theaters in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Writer/director Adam Rifkin stars in Homo Erectus as a philosophical caveman who wants more out of life than sticks, stones and raw meat. Jeremy and Jaclyn Lick play cave dwellers alongside Giuseppe Andrews, David Carradine, Talia Shire, Ali Larter, Tom Arnold and Gary Busey.
Rifkin and his producing partner Brad Wyman shot Homo Erectus two years ago in Austin through Burnt Orange Productions, an indie filmmaker program founded in cooperation with the Univ. of Texas Film Institute. The movie premiered at the January 2007 Slamdance Film Festival.
After National Lampoon picked up the indie feature for distribution last year, Rifkin shot additional T&A scenes with over a dozen more XXX performers including Sasha Grey, Rebeca Linares and Darryl Hanah. The porn stars were inserted into an existing party scene via green screen.
"National Lampoon said, 'We're buying it, but we need boobies!'" Jeremy told AVN. "Adam did an amazing job ... he found this amazing cave out in the Simi Valley area that totally matched where we shot in Texas, which was Robert Rodriguez' location out in Austin. And he used 15 porn stars to be in it, with all their boobies out, and all this muff. There's a tremendous amount of pubic hair. 'Cause you know, you can always tell a '70s porn film, because it's got bush ... well this is millions of years ago — a lot of bush! It was really funny."
Jeremy was featured in Rifkin's New Line Cinema feature Detroit Rock City in 1999. He's proudly promoting Homo Erectus in Chicago with Rifkin and Carradine.
"It's my first time in my whole life I've been used by a studio to represent a film with a celebrity and to travel with him," Jeremy told AVN. "Times have changed. Detroit Rock City kind of started it, when Mike De Luca [former production chief at New Line Cinema] saw that the audience knew me [and] allowed me to be on the poster. Times have actually changed. Adam has no problem using porn stars, he never has. And never let a studio tell him that he couldn't. He's been a good friend to the business."
Jeremy attended the film's L.A. premiere July 9 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, posing for photos with Ashlynn Brooke, Tommy Gunn and Phoebe Price.
If the film does well in L.A. and Chicago, Jeremy said, the AMC chain will play it in theaters nationwide.
National Lampoon's Homo Erectus is playing in the L.A. area at the Laemmle Music Hall 3 in West Hollywood, the AMC Rolling Hills 20 in South Bay and the AMC Covina 30.
