An elite Who’s Who of adult celebrities posed on the red carpet for dozens of gathered mainstream and adult photographers, while characters dressed in full pirate gear and fire eaters added even more color to the scene as a parade of limos pulled up outside the Orpheum Theater.
“Pirates: Stagnetti’s Revenge” is purported to have had a $10 million budget, with a year-plus production schedule and is the follow-up to Digital Playground’s all-time best-selling blockbuster original “Pirates,” which is the first adult film to have also managed a R-rating for a non-sex edited version.
The epic action costume drama is being released just in time for the Halloween season.
Getting a jump on some early trick-or-treating, adult star Nicki Hunter showed up in full pirate regalia, all the way down to her sex black boots.
“I went all out for it,” Hunter told XBIZ. “I’m a pirate tonight, so I’m supposed to pillage and plunder, right?”
Also dressed out for the occasion was the movie’s male lead, Evan Stone, who reprised his role as pirate hunter Captain Edward Reynolds.
“I’m not a pirate — I’m a pirate hunter,” Stone said, brandishing a big cutlass. “Actually it’s the codpiece that’s more deadly than the sword.”
Commenting on the effort and length of time that went into the making of the movie — with it’s Hollywood sized budget and production schedule lasting more than a year, Stone said that the level of professionalism was required in order to capture director Joone’s vision.
“It’s fantastic, each shot is perfect — sometimes we would do five takes and for other shots we would do it a hundred — but when we got it, we got it,” Stone told XBIZ. “By the time we did the whole movie, you had it memorized, and then to see the results of everything that we did on the screen is amazing.”
“There’s going to be a big cult thing,” Stone added, “with people throwing Pirate parties for this movie — that happened with the first one, in a lot of colleges, so…”
Exotic and elusive starlet Katsuni glowed like a rare treasure on the carpet; the first of a throng of Digital’s contract stars that arrived at the movie palace.
“It was very fun because, as you can imagine, it was not just the scenes, but there was plenty of dialogue and there were some fights also,” Katsuni told XBIZ. “So I went through training and also lessons because English is not my first language, so for me, it was very fun to be able to do that.
“My character is very interesting because I am very mean, and not a huge princess,” she added. “It’s a big role and I have a great story with Stagnetti.”
Reprising her role as Jules, super starlet Jess Jane also gushed about the film’s final cut — in R-rated, softcore and hardcore versions.
“You know what?” Jane told XBIZ. “The movie is great — we actually saw it Friday — and it blows the first one out of the water. The special effects and everybody out did themselves. Everybody that acted in this movie did such an amazing job and I was really surprised.
“It’s actually a good movie, so even when you cut out the sex part,” Jane said, “it is still an amazing story.”
“I love Belladonna,” Jane said, noting her favorite part of the production was the much talked-about girl/girl scene. “That was the funnest time I ever had. She’s crazy and I love her.”
Another intense girl/girl/girl scene in the film featured Digital Playground contract star Stoya.
“I’m a belly dancer and it’s in an orgy scene with Katsuni and Belladonna,” Stoya described. “It was hardcore.”
Resurrected in the title role, adult performer Tommy Gunn showed up to the premier sporting his “dead eye” contact lenses, and minus his usual goatee.
“It’s fantastic, amazing and wonderful,” Gunn told XBIZ. “I’m besides myself with the whole thing and I actually want to see it a couple of times, because you see stuff that you missed the first time.
“My favorite scene was the sword fight with Mr. Reynolds, and I got him back,’ Gunn said, only hinting at the plot.
Cast in the role of the governor of Jamaica, performer Ben English arrived with fiancée, Vivid Girl Nikki Jayne. He said that a lot went into his preparation for the role.
“It was challenging,” English told XBIZ, “I took it upon myself to rehearse quite a bit because I wanted to give a good performance.”
When asked if he and Jayne would dress up as pirates for Halloween, Jayne replied, “We’re going to dress up like two peas in a pod, or Roman sex slaves.”
English suggested then that Digital Playground might want to consider doing a remake of “Gladiator” for their next big project.
The mysterious Sasha Grey showed up for the premiere, refusing to disclose if her character was good or evil.
“Everybody is trying to trick me into that question, but you have to wait ‘til you watch it,” Grey said. “I’m just a badass.”
In a sequence where Grey fought CGI skeletons on a green screen set, she described, “It was interesting because doing the fight on-set, I was actually fighting air, so the most challenging part was trying to make it look real. I didn’t fight a person actually, but I am fighting skeletons.
“I don’t have a favorite scene, but I have to say that Katsuni kicks much ass,” Grey added. “When she gets onscreen, you just get shivers. She’s so natural.”
Several mainstream actors were cast in non-sex roles, and one who called herself Anastasia arrived to walk the red carpet, despite the fact that she had chosen to keep her adult role a secret from colleagues on the mainstream side.
“I did use a different name and I’m not telling because there would be a bias, but when they offered it to me, I figured if anyone said anything to me about being in the film, I would just ask them what they were doing watching it,” Anastasia said.
“I thought the sets were amazing and I was amazed at the amount of money that was spent,” she added, comparing the production to her experiences in the mainstream. “I watched the last movie before I went into this one and I was amazed by how much money went into that film, and I’d only scene the trailer for this, and even that was incredible.”
Asked whether or not she thought that mainstream Hollywood and the adult world could ever come together — in light of a production like “P2: Stagnetti’s Revenge” closing the breech — Anastasia said, “If there are people with open minds, than I think it would be great.”
Another producer who is familiar with blockbuster territory (and also a top notch promoter), X-Play’s Jeff Mullen, aka Will Ryder, took his hat off to the monumental effort by Digital Playground and director Joone.
“You really gotta give it up to Digital Playground — they really know how to do it. We think we [X-Play] know how to do it, but I give them props to how they do things,” Mullen told XBIZ. “They’re old school. They do it the way they used to do in the old days, when people could come dressed like superstars and bring some glamour back to the porn industry. I love it.
“I think they raised the bar the first time they made the movie. I think it’s difficult to compete, but SexZ Pictures tries to compete with big budget films. We try to compete with our comedies, but this is obviously the king moment of the year — the biggest moment before Vegas — and it’s great to be here,” Mullen said.
But perhaps adult starlet Paola Rey summed it up best.
“This is great for the industry and they’re really re-writing the whole history of porn,” Rey said. “It’s the first time for such a production, I think, and a great time for a second chance to go out there and show that we can be as good as mainstream.”
Other adult celebrities and personalities spotted at last night’s gala included: Jenna Haze, Jules Jordan, Moxie Maddron, Robby D, Anita Blue, Stephanie Swift, Dana DeArmond, Aiden Starr, Bobbi Star, Roxy DeVille, Rhyse and Rylee Richards, Tricia Devereaux, Arianna Armani, Gianna Lynn, Alexis Texas, photographer Holly Randall, Kayden Kross, Kristina Rose, Veronica Rayne, Shy Love, Shawna Lenee, Veronique Vega, Devon Lee, Lynn LeMay, Jack the Zipper, Chris King, Roy Karch, Gary Garver, Marcus London and Devon Lee, and Frank Castle and Linda Roberts, Jenny Hendrix, Shy Love, Jana Jordan, Brea Lynn,
Adult star Teagan Presley conducted red carpet video interviews for XFANZ.com.
