‘Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge’: the story of the most expensive adult movie ever made
The cinematic medium is predominantly a narrative affair with its endless tales of a thousand triumphs and a further thousand heartaches. Considering the storytelling quality of cinema in its more erotic ventures, the narrative also seems to play a vital cog in the machine of pornography, too, with almost every porn film at least attempting to lay down a rather feeble storyline before its proper bulk and more desirable action can genuinely occur.
I’d recently been discussing the artistic brilliance of Jim Powers’ 2001 erotic masterpiece The Whore of the Rings, which details the visionary fantasy world of J.R.R. Tolkien with a sexual ebullience rarely catered for in the realm of pornography. Gazing upon a dual-cocked Gollum on a projector in the accommodation of a Southampton recording studio many years ago, I lay strewn across the carpet in unabating fits of laughter, the explicit Middle Earth version of Jim Powers eternally burned into my retina.
Erotic visions of our most beloved fantasy worlds do not begin and end with The Whore of the Rings, though, as Pirates of the Caribbean also received the porn industry treatment in 2005 with Joone’s humbly and simply titled Pirates, which goes to great lengths to reference and pay respectful homage to The Curse of the Black Pearl. The beloved swashbuckling film of 2003 was directed by Gore Verbinski and starred Johnny Depp in one of his most iconic roles as Captain Jack Sparrow.
Pirates, on the other hand, tells of Captain Edward Reynolds, played with furious lust by industry stalwart Evan Stone, who sets out in search of the pirate leader Captain Victor Stagnetti, portrayed with equal vigour by Tommy Gunn. Naturally, though, whatever narrative is present in Pirates soon gives way to an onboard, nautical-themed frenzy of fucking; the crew of Reynolds’ ship becoming enraptured by the stormy seas on which they sail and their inner desire for carnal satisfaction.
A handful of scenes for the film were shot aboard a replica of the HMS Bounty in Florida, with the owners of the ship mistakenly believing that the film was a “Disney-type pirate film for families”. How wrong they were. Shot in high definition with an original score, Pirates was, at the time, the most expensive porn movie ever made, with a budget in excess of $1million.
That fee would pale in significance to Pirates’ sequel, though, 2008’s Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, which came dripping out of production having cost an astonishing $8m. Remarkably, the trailer for Pirates II was available for personal perusal on MUBI, so inevitably, my trusted sea-faring confidant and I dived in headfirst to plunder its buried erotic spoils.
Pirates II is glimmering with artistic and sexual ambition, with some of the biggest names in the adult entertainment industry signing up for an erotic voyage at sea. Having been defeated in the most lubricated of means in the first film, Victor Stagnetti is reborn from the sea in Pirates II, unleashing his phallic fury upon a seductive crew of ship-scrubbing shaggers, only to meet his match in the form of “the greatest pirate hunter than has ever lived,” the ever-bulging Edward Reynolds.
Joone’s film had been scheduled for screening at College Park, University of Maryland, back in 2009, but the absolute vibe killer of a Senator, Andrew P. Harris, threatened to strip all public funding from any institution showing pornographic films. Still, that didn’t stop 200 horny, naval-loving students, professors and administrators donning their breeches and eye patches and settling into a genuine cinematic feat of maritime pornography anyway, having consulted the details of the First Amendment.
Naturally, there’s an air of tongue-in-cheek humour about Stagnetti’s Revenge, but the film boasts an impressive production quality that’s often missing in even the most attentively cared-for works of pornography. As of yet, there have been no plans for a third film in the series, but don’t be too surprised should Victor Stagnetti rise from the waters once again to put his mortal enemies to the sword.
