In May, Falcon Studios closed out “Falcon Forever,” an epic, yearlong promotional campaign commemorating its 50th anniversary. The festivities included the first-ever XBIZ World cover spotlighting a gay adult studio, plus an accompanying story included an array of celebrity testimonials, from iconoclast director John Waters to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Latrice Royale, as well as fond recollections by current and classic Falcon exclusive stars.
The check-ins with those classic performers — Tom Chase, Chase Hunter, Dean Phoenix and Matthew Rush — generated a wave of nostalgic appreciation, and Falcon/NakedSword President Tim Valenti and his team, including VP of marketing Toby J. Morris, took notice. The rediscovery coincided with the release of the “Icons” DVD collection, five two-disc volumes starring the top studs from each of the studio’s first five decades.
There’s something about ‘vintage’ that people are very into right now. It’s so interesting. Perhaps it feels more authentic.
“We sold out,” Morris reveals. “It was very, very successful in retail and wholesale. TLA Video and our European distributors have had great success with it and the orders keep coming in. And so we’re reprinting all of it.”
He noted that the complete sets sold faster than the individual titles, a trend that carried over to 2020’s other big compilation, the bulging “Falcon Vault Collection: The Classics.” That anthology collected notable and notorious titles from across the studio’s storied history, such as “Weekend Lockup,” “Against the Rules,” “Huge 1” and “Huge 2,” “Biker’s Liberty,” “The New Breed,” “Spokes,” “Splash Shots,” “Night Flight” and “The Other Side of Aspen: Remastered.”
Morris described adding bonus material and other features, and the new remastering tech that “cleaned up the fuzziness” from older titles.
“These are the titles that people have been asking about over and over again,” he said. “They tell us how they want access to them. And there’s something about ‘vintage’ that people are very into right now. It’s so interesting. Perhaps it feels more authentic. It’s the origin stories of the pizza delivery guy, the locker room fantasy. There’s definitely more of an emotional connection for customers of a certain age.”
“The first time you make that kind of connection is just permanently burned into your brain,” Morris mused. “We long for that kind of feeling, don’t we?”
The anniversary collections were meant to be special, one-off projects to commemorate a milestone in the company’s history, but their runaway retail success has prompted Falcon to dig deeper into its vaults for other vintage titles, such as long-unavailable Falcon International titles directed by George Duroy before he went on to found BelAmi.
While the wholesale/retail reissue of classic titles helps fill the shelves, those movies will also receive a VOD release. Falcon has learned that its vintage material sits quite comfortably alongside newly produced content featuring Colton Reece, Devin Franco, Tristan Hunter and Reign; present-day fans thrill to the sexcapades of Al Parker, Dick Fisk and Jeff Turk, Chad Douglas, Joey Stefano and Kevin Williams, Mike Branson, Ken Ryker and Tom Chase just as much as their fans in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.
Morris described “a number of interesting possibilities” with compilation projects, including the return of individual model collections under the Falcon/NakedSword brand. “Compilations used to be an afterthought,” he said. “That doesn’t have to be the case anymore.”
Among the company’s plans during its “Falcon Forever” campaign was an intricately planned series of live events and personal appearances by exclusive performers, all of which were scuttled by the COVID lockdowns.
Now that safety restrictions have eased, Falcon has dusted off those plans, which include more nightclub editions of its “Play: Live” interactive adult game show, and the “Miss Pineapple” pageant, which features popular male performers in a drag competition to benefit mental health and wellness nonprofit organization Pineapple Support.
Meet-and-greets are a cornerstone of Falcon’s history, from its late, legendary founder Chuck Holmes buying and selling loops, one customer at a time, in the early ’70s through pre-social media gay nightclub and adult theater tours by the latest exclusive studs. Once again, Falcon is laying the groundwork for the future by revisiting its past successes.
“Sex work is becoming more and more mainstream,” Morris said. “And we are positioning ourselves to be out in front as the mainstream audience really starts turning in our direction.”
For example, producers of the recent “Pam & Tommy” miniseries, which explores the notoriety surrounding the infamous sex tape stolen from Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, reached out to license a number of Falcon’s mid-’90s posters to lend an air of verisimilitude.
The “biggest and most positive” change for Falcon/NakedSword, Morris added, is a notably bulging roster of exclusive performers, among the largest in company history, all of whom will be hitting the streets in the coming months. “They’re not just the hottest guys, but guys who really like to be out in the world and be our ambassadors and really represent in the truest form of the word, the brand as a whole,” he said.
Morris sees an opportunity to build upon and strengthen the bond Falcon/NakedSword customers feel with the brand. The “Falcon Forever” promo campaign achieved its primary goal of celebrating five decades of success, but it also underscored the fondly held space the studio occupies in gay culture.
“Falcon’s always going to be looking to create those special moments where people can really have an experience. We’re always looking for ways to engage with the audience,” Morris said.
“Whether it’s our new podcast, ‘Discretion Advised,’ which is mixing the worlds of porn and reality television and exposing us to a whole new audience, or venturing out for these interactive nightclub experiences with our models, we’re really looking forward to giving audiences a new taste of what Falcon/NakedSword is really about.”
