'Marriage 2.0' Premiere Screening Held in West Hollywood

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Marriage 2.0, a new plot-driven production from LionReach Productions in association with Adam & Eve Pictures, had its premiere screening at the Andaz Hotel in West Hollywood Wednesday before an invitation-only audience that included Nina Hartley, Alexandra Silk, AVN founder Paul Fishbein, director Roy Karch, Dr, Chauntelle Tibbals, and Adam & Eve executives Bob Christian and Bruce Whitney. The two-hour-plus production features India Summer, Ryan Driller, Dylan Ryan, Nina Hartley, Mickey Mod, and Sadie Lune in a story about people in open (and not-so-open) relationships that "elegantly weaves hardcore sex into a compelling, touching, and controversial narrative addressing the evolving nature of commitment and relationships." The production, shot in and around San Francisco, presents hardcore scenes in the context of the relationships of the characters who are having sex. "It's a complex set of topics we're trying to take on, in a complex medium," screenwriter/producer Magnus Sullivan said after the presentation. "There were a lot of challenges in bringing the artistry of the story, together with the cinematography, together with the acting, together with the editing, together with the…" "Sex!" Nina Hartley added from the audience. "The sex. Yes," Sullivan agreed. "We wanted to transport an audience into an emotional and believable scenario, in a very sexual environment. We have the greatest asset in our arsenal, which is hardcore sex. We can show it on screen. Yet we often fail to leverage the potential of that asset. One of the goals was to try something different here that can engage a much broader audience. People want to hear stories, and they want to see them in an erotic environment. They don't just want anal pounding of an 18-year-old girl all day long. We thought about the sex and how it evolved the characters. There's some pretty intense stuff going on, and that's successful storytelling: You get people into a space where they’re watching this thing, and 'I didn't sign up for this but I'm engaged somehow.' There aren't a lot of people doing that [in adult] right now. There's a lot of stuff made for consumers who have a three-minute masturbatory need, and if they don't want to do that, they want to make a couples movie, then they just put soft music in the background." "You proved that we can have it all, and we can go there together," director Karch told Sullivan during the Q-and-A session after the presentation. "You can do everything. As raw as it is, it's just as tender. You have both sides of the coin right there." "I love how all the sex situations weren't all the same," said Hartley, whose character had sex in the production. "The oral sex was shot simply, with nice shadows, very impressionistic. I don't need everything to look the same, like they often do. I appreciated that." "I tried to use minimal lighting, and light from where light would come from naturally," director of photography Alex Ladd told AVN. "The beauty of today’s cameras is that the ISO settings are so high that you can shoot using available light and make the natural look a little better. When you do anything creatively you’re proud of the work you did as a whole, but you see the mistakes.” "If you're a Star Trek fan—I think of this film as the Genesis Probe," Sullivan said. "It's fired into the dead planet of adult content and hopefully it will re-ignite an audience and other filmmakers. If we make money doing this, other people will say 'Hey, this is possible. We can make good narrative.' In 10 years I hope people say it started when Adam & Eve took a risk and a bunch of performers crew members worked their asses off to deliver something beautiful and meaningful, and that's what opened up this market." "I think [adult] movies lack basic narrative arcs," Sullivan told AVN. "They use the sex as a self-contained entity. What we really tried to do is use the sex and the story to build to a crescendo, which is [the climactic scene] where it all comes together. It's basic storytelling." Plans call for Marriage 2.0 to be released in late January, and a softcore version will be prepared for wider release in the future. Click here to see a gallery of stills from Marriage 2.0. Click here to read more about LionsReach, a collaboration between Adam & Eve and Gamelink.