Less action in this adventure

MTI re-edits porn Pirates for R-rating

By Laurence Lerman -- Video Business, 5/19/2006

MAY 19 | MTI Home Video on July 11 will release a newly re-edited, R-rated version of last year’s smash adult offering Pirates, in what the company believes is an industry first.

According to MTI, this marks the first time in the history of the home entertainment business that an erotic adult film has been re-edited into a feature film and certified with an R rating by the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

“When we ran the idea of this title by our key accounts, they were all interested but concerned. They all said we had to get it rated,” said Larry Brahms, president and CEO of MTI, who struck the deal with Pirates’ producers, the adult labels Digital Playground and Adam & Eve, earlier this year.

A hardcore, XXX film starring some of the adult industry’s most popular stars, including Jesse Jane, Devon, Carmen Luvana and Janine, Pirates is considered to be one of the most expensive adult feature ever produced. According to Digital Playground, its budget is in “the low seven figures.”

Receiving press from such mainstream media outlets as The New York Times and Newsweek upon its release last fall, Pirates went on to win 11 trophies at this year’s Adult Video News Awards Show, more honors than any single production has ever garnered in the show’s 23-year history.

“By the time we made the decision to move forward, the original Pirates was a known commodity,” said Brahms.

Originally billed as a “swashbluckling sex adventure,” the new R-rated version of Pirates is being touted by MTI as an “action-adventure” offering, with the label playing up the film’s sea battles, sword fights and sorcery sequences. The original epic ran more than two hours, but the new version clocks in at a lean 82 minutes.

According to Brahms, all of MTI’s top retail accounts are “curious and interested” in the new Pirates and are “buying deep.”

The original Pirates also was made available as an HD DVD, making it one of the first adult titles to be issued in that format. Though MTI is not issuing an HD version of the R-rated cut at this time, Brahms insists that the film will receive the multi-format treatment down the line.

“Unquestionably, our plans are for across-the-board release: HD, Blu-ray and PSP,” said Brahms.