Porn Valley- I had a lengthy chat this weekend with Don Hollywood. Last year Hollywood met with a money man named Allen Adler. Adler was forming a company called Back End. "We were approached first by Calvin Howard who we know very well from his days at Wicked," says Hollywood. Howard, whose wife still works at Wicked, took a job with the new company.
"He called us to submit some material for them to review," Hollywood explained. "They were looking for directors." According to Hollywood, about May of last year he met with Back End's partners which consisted of Adler, Bruce Millstein and Rob Robaire. Robaire subsequently dropped out of the partnership. Hollywood was told the company had $20 million and could raise an unlimited amount of funds. They also wanted to get into the porn business real seriously he was told and that they wanted to hire a staff of sales people.
"Everything they said seemed to make a fair amount of sense," says Hollywood. "It had some good ideas behind it." But, at the same time, the partners told Hollywood they didn't know the adult business. "Tell us what we need to know."
Hollywood said he and Brooke Hunter brought them some material to take a look at. and talks ensued as to the various genres of porn. "I suggested to them basically what I suggest to anyone who comes to me and says how do I start a production company," Hollywood said. "I said shoot for 4-6 months, every week. Decide the formats you want and shoot four times a month. You'll have 30 titles in six months. Then you have something to release. You can start your pre-publicity for your releases several months in advance. They said it sounded like a great idea. I said, okay, tell us what you want us to do."
Hollywood said that's when he got a call, that the company wanted him to be part of the Back End family. The company hyped the fact that this was going to be the first company where talent and directors participate in profits. "That's where the name Back End comes from," said Hollywood. "They set up a phone room and they had some other businesses that were never clear as to what they were." August of last year, Hunter was told that the company would like to sign her to a non-exclusive contract. In that capacity, Hunter would be a spokeswoman for the company.
"We entered a deal where Brooke would be paid a weekly salary," says Hollywood. "It would be increased substantially as time went by. They wanted us to do six volumes of a wall to wall series similar to what we had done in the past, similar to Brooke Hunter's Ecstasy. So we came up with Brooke Hunter's Sex on Demand. We shot the first volume. In that volume we brought some good talent to the table like Violet Blue, Destiny St. Claire, Trista Post and Julie Night. We turned in a really good movie. Thirty days after Brooke and I shot the movie we delivered to them a finished product including a hardcore master and a softcore master. And it was ready to go to replication. But they didn't have replicated product until January. They went off on this wild tangent- I think it was Rob Robaire's idea to do this Erotica Boxing." Hollywood said he did a casting call at the Back End offices.
"We got the ten girls together to do the Erotica Boxing and negotiated a great package with the girls." Hollywood said this was back in October. "The match was October 23rd at some boxing club in San Pedro. They brought in this huge crew to do pay-per-view but they didn't have a pay-per-view deal. In the meantime, I said look, if you're going to get all these girls together, take advantage of the situation, book a place where we can shoot and we'll try to shoot a boy-girl movie; a solo girl movie and an all-girl movie." Hollywood said he was able to bring the movies in up to replication for $14,000. "We took ten girls and Kyle Stone, myself, Rob Longshot and Jack Spade and we did the movie. We negotiated a place to shoot for $2500."
According to idea, the additional idea behind Erotica Boxing was to hold a training camp. "They were going to bring in professional boxers and train all these girls to really box. Brooke and I said this was ludicrous. These girls don't want to box. They don't want to get hit. No one wants to have a black eye. This has got to be something that's staged. This is an adult entertainment event. You guys are not in sports. How long do you have to train somebody before you put them in a ring?"
Accordingly, the event was divided up among bust size classes. "Which seemed to make the most sense." From there, Hollywood shot the three movies which included an all-girl orgy. That project took two days. "We bring the package back." he said. "We put the movies into edit. And we go off to this boxing match. The boxing match was a disaster. We had to keep head hear on the girls."
Asked how much this boxing package cost including the movies, Hollywood said the girls got paid $2,000 for everything. "It was $20,000 in girls for everything. The girls didn't want to come out to box for $500." According to Hollywood, Back End wasn't going to pay anyone until the boxing event. "So they made sure everyone showed up for boxing." Hollywood said the event was a fiasco and fans were booing. "People were pissed." The last bout featured Hunter and Lisa Sparxxx. "This thing is dying a horrible death," says Hollywood who suggested that Lisa and Brooke just get pissed at one another and make the final bout a nude free-for-all. "This last bout neither Lisa nor Brooke were fond of getting hit by the other or hitting the other. I said you're porn chicks not boxers. In the second round I said you guys strip each other and put on a girl-girl show where we're not showing pink to the camera. Bruce Millstein said this was the greatest thing they've ever seen. This is wonderful. This is terrific. They just love it. The crowd is going wild and all their investors are happy."
But after the match, Allen Adler, according to Hollywood, walked up to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and asked who authorized that play between Hunter and Sparxxx. Hollywood told him it was his idea. "If you're unhappy with it, blame me, I'll take full responsibility," he told Adler. "I bet you will," Adler's supposed to have told him. Hollywood says most of the girls were upset with the way the event turned out. "Brooke and I left without saying a word to them. It was probably a week or ten days that we had no contact with them whatsoever." Hollywood then contacted Adler saying let's straighten this out. He talked to Adler.
"He said you ruined out company," Hollywood relates. "I said you're out of your mind. Everybody loved it. He said we can't get a pay per view deal out of this. I said bullshit. Assuming you get a softcore deal, you edit around it. You must have had six cameras going. This can be edited. The end result was, you're right, but don't do that again. He said I had an investor who pulled out $50,000 he said we lied to him. I said what is it with your investors. Basically it was Bruce Millstein, Brooke and I who pulled this whole thing off. We worked seven days a week on the promise that once the boxing match was over, there was going to be substantial compensation for Brooke and I. We were told it was serious money because some serious investors were coming in and we would be rewarded for our time."
There had been talk about doing another boxing venue in Vegas, and Hollywood secured Sapphire for them. "But what really happened they spent $36,000 shooting the first event and didn't get the return from investors they thought they were. They were pissed about that." In another meeting before the boxing event, Adler supposedly let Hollywood in on a little secret that made Hollywood, safe to say, very uncomfortable. "Do you think I give a shit about making movies?" he's supposed to have said to Hollywood. "This is about raising money." Nevertheless, Hollywood gave Adler his informed legal opinion on certain issues.
The company had a booth at Erotica L.A. last year. "No one was in the booth at Erotica L.A.," says Hollywood, telling the company they better start planning ahead for Vegas while they can still get good space. "Calvin was telling them the same thing. So they ended up in the back corner in probably the worst booth you can possibly imagine. For the most part they paid Brooke for being there. She lived up to her contract." Hollywood says he made other suggestions for promo which were basically disregarded and not followed up on. Hunter says she was subsequently paid by the company although they tried to song and dance around the issue. But it was on January 26 that Hunter received her last check. Hunter called Millstein who basically told her in fairly strong language not to expect another check.
"Since then we had no contact with them," says Hollywood. "Then Allen called and said we've got some financial problems here but we're definitely going to stay in the adult business and turn it around. We think we can really do some good things. We like the movies you guys are making but we need to go on hiatus and re-group for three or four months but we'll bring you back in the fold. Meanwhile, Brooke's going to get paid." On February 17 after numerous phone calls, Hollywood sent the company a letter breaking down what was owed to Hunter for the remainder of her contract. "It was $7,000 and change," said Hollywood. "Along with what was owed to us for producing and directing the movies and the remaining five movies we didn't do." In further correspondence, Hollywood told the company that they were floundering around. "The direct sales isn't working. They hired some kid from Girls Gone Wild who knew nothing about marketing to video stores. They were selling one piece here and one piece there."
Hollywood told them it was pretty clear that he was not going to get his money and made a suggestion that he would take title and interest to Brooke Hunter's Sex on Demand. Hollywood got the masters and all the paperwork on it. He was told he had a deal upon a letter of confirmation. Hollywood then made clear his intentions that he would re-package the movie and remove Back End's logo. "And I'm going to re-edit the movie to put the Hollywood-Hunter name on it." Adler informed Hollywood that he would sell the 2500 pieces Back End had. Hollywood said, okay, just let him know where they're going. "It may prompt me to want to re-order the scenes and so on. After that, I never got a return from that phone call. I called him virtually on a daily basis from then until about three weeks ago."
Three weeks ago, Hollywood said he got wind of the fact that Hunter's Sex on Demand along with the boxing movies and the rest of Back End's product was sold to K Beech. Hollywood called K Beech to inform them that he owned Sex on Demand. "I'm sure you're not aware of it. I don't want to hassle you guys. If you have the three boxing movies, Brooke and I never gave them our releases or our ID's because the shit hit the fan before that. We knew we were going to have a problem. They way we could hold out was paper work." Hollywood subsequently got a call from Kevin Beech and Beech told him he paid Back End for the movies, that he had the movies and was going to continue to sell the movies. Hollywood to him, no, I own those movies.
"He [Kevin] said to me I don't want to get into it with you," Hollywood relates. "He and I have always had a good relationship. Kevin says I'm going to straighten it out with them. We're going to have a meeting with the guys from Back End and sort out who owns what. He says they're either going to give you the money back that I paid them for the movies; or they're going to deliver up clear title. I said it all works for me."
Hollywood then got a call from Adler who indicated he wanted to settle up and be done with it, that Hollywood had two choices either take it on his terms or Adler would bankrupt the company and Hollywood would never see a dime. In a follow-up phone call, Hollywood was told that an agreement would be e-mailed that if he signed it, he'd have money on Tuesday. The agreement read that in exchange for $2,000, Hollywood walks away. Hollywood e-mailed Adler back to say not in your wildest dreams. "Ain't gonna happen."
Hollywood in his reply also ventured the notion that the federal bankruptcy courts weren't likely to be that forgiving. "I will litigate this matter," Hollywood told Adler. "And should you seek to file for bankruptcy protection, I will appear and object to any discharge. Good luck to you. In the meantime, I own that movie and, if necessary, I'm going to have to bring K Beech Video into this whole loop."
That's where it stands, and Hollywood suspects that there's probably a lot of unhappy people now that the money is gone.
