LOS ANGELES - Adult stars Jesse Jane and Sunny Leone have joined the cast of Middle Men, producer Chris Mallick's indie feature about the birth of the online porn industry.
Middle Men stars Luke Wilson as Jack Harris, a mainstream businessman who partners with a pair of porn content providers (Gabriel Macht and Giovanni Ribisi) to form the first online adult billing company. Harris soon finds himself in a crazy whirlwind of starlets, con men, Russian mobsters, and international terrorists.
"The movie is about a lot of things," Mallick told AVN. "The characters lives change dramatically; it shows what money brings, and what money takes away from you. Depictions of this industry have typically been negative, but not everyone in the movie is a bad guy."
Director George Gallo co-wrote the script with Andy Weiss for Mallick's company Oxymoron Entertainment. The supporting cast includes James Caan as a lawyer, Kelsey Grammer as a Houston district attorney, Peter Stormare as a mobster, and Kevin Pollack as an FBI agent who works with Harris to track terrorists online. The great Robert Forster (Medium Cool, Walking the Edge) plays the role of "Louis La La."
The movie is now entering its third week of production in Phoenix, with shooting scheduled to continue in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Sunny and Jesse will play themselves in scenes that take place during the 2003 AVN Awards.
"We're recreating the AVN Awards red carpet in front of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on December 7," Mallick said. "Sunny is in one of the scenes in Vegas. There's also a party scene that takes place at the same time, which we'll be shooting at a hotel in Phoenix. We've got a number of Playboy cyber-girls in some scenes in Vegas and Phoenix, and we're using content from Porno Pushers, Corrupt, and a few other sites; it's nothing explicit, but there will be some web content intercut into the film."
Middle Men reflects Mallick's own background as the CEO of Paycom (later Epoch), one of the first internet billing companies dealing with adult entertainment. Mallick eventually sold his interest in Epoch to his partners and now owns the online payment company ePassporte.
"It's a highly fictionalized account; like with any movie, you have an idea or an experience and turn it into something dramatic," Mallick said. "I gave George Gallo and Andy Weiss the basic idea, and they took off with it. I think it's going to be a big film, and I think the industry is going to like it; it's funny, dramatic, and interesting."
While no distributor has yet been attached to the production, Mallick expects Middle Men to receive a wide theatrical release in 2009.
"I'm very happy with the quality of the film and the performances," he said. "We have real pros in all areas; my producing partners, the writers, the crew. So far, the shooting has been great; it's a lot of hard work, and a lot of fun."
Meanwhile, Mallick is also producing a documentary called Life After Porn. The doc will feature testimonials from Asia Carrera, Jasmin St. Claire, Houston, John Leslie, Sunset Thomas, Mary Carey, Nina Hartley, and many other major adult stars of the past and present.
For more information on Mallick and Middle Men, visit MiddleMenMovie.com.
