Chris Ward Inducted into GayVN Hall of Fame

Hey Guys--

We just had the GayVN show here in San Francisco, and it was a great experience. For me the high point of the evening was receiving the Hall of Fame Award for ten years of service to the adult industry. In my acceptance speech I thanked everyone, but singled out Steven Scarborough and JD Slater as having been the two most significant influences on my professional career. This was a great honor and I am thrilled by the recognition.

Ben Leon and Collin O'Neal won two other awards for RSS (Best Latin and Best Pro-AM for Manhattan and Lebanon respectively). These two new directors are going to heat up the porn world in the coming years! I am very proud to be associated with them

The entire auditorium was thrilled when François Sagat received the top honor of Performer of the Year for his work in such classics as Manifesto, Bedroom Eyes, and Arabesque. A Raging Stallion photo of François is on the cover of this year's Adam Video Guide. Look for François in several new upcoming Raging Stallion releases including Instinct and Best In Hole. I know that many of you feel that the market is flooded with François Sagat movies, but we just can't get enough of him. We have a bunch of new scenes that will be coming out over the next 10 months, so keep your eyes peeled!

No posting on the GayVNs can go without mentioning that Michael Lucas was the big winner of the night for his insightful remake of La Dolce Vita. This is not the kind of movie we make at RSS (we prefer to keep our movies full of sex), but many reviewers really thought this was the best thing since sliced bread. We can't wait to see what movie Michael remakes next years. Our suggestion, of course, is Bonfire of the Vanities!

Can Michael Lucas Survive Latest Legal Attack?

Hey Guys--

My fellow producer Michael Lucas is in deep legal doo doo again. The company that owns the copyrights and trademarks for Fellini's film La Dolce Vita have filed suit in Federal Court in the district of New York demanding the recall and end to all sales of Michael Lucas' latest hit movie of the same name.

No matter how this turns out--if Michael fights and wins or if he fights and looses--he will be out a lot of time, energy, and money. There are three scenarios as I see it:

1. Give up and withdraw the movie and fork over profits of the movie--this would be a disaster and might be enough to drive Lucas out of business. His studio, while releasing numerous titles per year, has put most of their eggs in the La Dolce Vita basket--lossing the past and future profits on this movie would be devastating.

2. Fight and win in Federal District Court. This is another bad option for Mr. Lucas. To fight this kind of battle will cost well over $250,000--perhaps much more. He is a minor porn operator up against a major company with deep pockets and a team of lawyers. To prevail would take a miracle, but even in victory Lucas would be looking at bankruptcy.

3. Fight and loose--the worst of three bad cases. If Lucas looses everything, then the game is over.

An interesting twist on all of this is that the GayVNs are coming up next week and La Dolce Vita is nominated for 14 awards, including best picture. The irony of the situation is that the more awards Lucas wins for this movie, the more money the Fellini people are going to demand for a settlement! In short, this is a perfect porn catch 22--if he wins he looses.

The sad thing is that most of us in the porn world love watching the O.J. Simpson-like antics of Michael Lucas. He is ever a source of controversial amusement. To loose him will be sad. Lets see what he can pull out of his bag of tricks, but from my perspective I see no happy ending for New York's most colorful porn personality.

Chris Ward

François Sagat

Hey Guys--I read this on François Sagat's blog and I thought it would be fair to post it here and to respond briefly.

François Sagat said...

"RagingStallion did Wonderful movies with me...Arabesque...etc They did a lot for me to make me become a Star in the industry...and already said "Thank You".

But Titan is my new company...and that's only the beginning...it's just a simple evolution,I 've changed a lot inside and outside since almost 2 years of working as a porn actor in USA... and I think TITANMEDIA is more appropriate to me right now.I feel more comfortable with that strong and agressive Image that belongs to me an that feats very well with their style.

My work for RSS is finished since July 2006,and RagingStallionStudios are trying to make people believe that I'm still working with them. My Collaboration with TITAN goes SLOWLY but STRONGLY...and it's all about not being too fast in my way with them. I just wanna make things clear and will never discuss the quality of the good movies I did for RagingStallion,I just don't like their behaviour when it comes to every easy opportunity of using my present image again, and I have to respond sometimes. THAT'S ALL."

We at Raging Stallion are not attempting in any way whatsoever to make people believe we are still working with Francios. What we are doing is finishing up releasing the scenes we filmed with him (there are several more to come). When he worked for us, François insisted on filming at least 10 scenes per visit--which we accommodated. It would have been irresponsible of us to release all of these at once, so we have paced them out so that the market does not get flooded with François' image.

We know that François is working for another company--and fans know that as well. By next year François movies from the "other" company will dominate the headlines, but I hope that François understands that we need to finish releasing all of the movies he made for us.

We wish François all the best with his new company, and we are happy that fans still enjoy the work he did at Raging Stallion Studios.

Chris Ward

Porn Bust in NYC!

Many of you may have heard that Raging Stallion teamed up with Dark Alley, Pit Bull, Hot House and Falcon to raid two stores in New York that were running an illegal duplication factory in their basements. We went to court and got US Marshals to raid the store and confiscate over 4,000 pirate copies of our DVDs that were being sold for bargain prices.

Making high quality porn is very hard and very expensive, and to have a bunch of scavengers making and selling illegal copies of our films really makes it hard for us to do business and keep making the porn you want to see. ebay is another source of pirated copies of movies--some adult companies are actively suing ebay members who copy and sell our movies. Sadly, we must choose between focusing our energy on pirates or on making new, excellent movies. When pirates prevail, we all lose.

Please do not patronize pirates. When you buy our movies, please buy original, legit copies.

The GayVNs are coming up next week, and I hope to see many of you at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. Wish us luck!

Françios Sagat won Performer of the Year for his work in Raging Stallion feature films at the recent WeHo awards (Raging Stallion won Studio of the Year along with five other awards!). We are releasing a brand new Françios movie next month--its called Instinct and is a follow-up to Manifesto, one of the most popular movies we released in 2007. Françios is now working for another studio, but we are proud to have been part of his great year of success. A lot of work went into making Françios' scenes some of the best in the business--Françios deserves lots of credit, but his costars, directors, and our film crews also made these scenes into the stunning erotica that they are.

I read on a porn blog that Françios claims that Raging Stallion had nothing to do with his recent win at the WeHo awards, claiming that the 20 or so films he made for RSS did not count, but that he won based on his two new movies (what are their titles???). I am saddened by Françios' attitude--he fails to take into account that when he worked for Raging Stallion he was working with the most talented people in the industry.

I throw down a challenge--lets see if Françios can win anything next year without the support of America's favorite porn company--Raging Stallion Studios!

Chris Ward

Raging Stallion Takes Top Honors at WeHo Awards

SanFrancisco based Raging Stallion Studios swept to an overwhelming triumph at the WeHo awards held last night in West Hollywood. The WeHo awards are the only gay erotic awards show held in the Los Angeles area. Held at Mickey's (host of Cocktails With The Stars), the WeHo awards are voted on by fans rather than selected by reviewers--in short a people's choice awards for gay erotica.

Company president Chris Ward could hardly believe the sweep. "We know that fans are strong supporters of our Studio, but getting this kind of public feedback is really astounding! I am very proud of François Sagat and our whole team. We made some great movies last year and fans have voted with their endorsement! 2007 is going to be even better!"

Raging Stallion went into the show with high hopes--all of which were exceeded as award after award was delivered to America's most popular studio. After a year of steady growth (with overall sales up 38 % over the previous year), Raging Stallion further cemented its position in the top tier of Studios.

The awards won were:

Best VOD Movie of the Year Arabesque

Best Porn Star Site xxxmichaelbrandon.com

Best Group Scene Humping Iron

Best JO Scene François Sagat in Manhattan

Porn Star of the Year François Sagat

Film of the Year
Lords of the Jungle

Studio of the Year Raging Stallion Studios