Page 67 - AVN March 2017

FEATURE
BODIES OF WORK From left, Female Performer of the Year
Adriana Chechik; Best New Starlet Holly Hendrix; Transsexual Performer
of the Year Aubrey Kate. Below, Charles Dera, Kleio Valentien, Axel
Braun, Asa Akira, Seth Gamble, Tommy Pistol and Lexington Steele from
Suicide Squad XXX. Photos by Rick Garcia.
‘SUICIDE’ MISSION
Movie of the Year winner ‘Suicide Squad XXX: An Axel Braun Parody’
It was indisputably the runaway hit of the year, spending an unheard-of three months
at number one on AVN’s sales and rentals chart, and at the 2017 AVN Awards Show,
Suicide Squad XXX: An Axel Braun Parody became the director’s third consecutive winner
of both Best Parody and the ceremony’s biggest prize, Movie of the Year.
Braun credits a menagerie of factors for the movie’s astounding success, but chief
among them may be that “Warner Bros. did a pretty amazing job marketing the
original, and I suppose I benefited from that,” the parody maestro told AVN. “The
fact that, although a massive commercial success, Suicide Squad was generally panned
by critics and fans, definitely played in my favor. The irony is that I would have gladly
traded my own success for a better mainstream version. Yes I’m THAT much of a fan.”
While this may be Braun’s third parody to win Movie of the Year, it’s his first comic
parody to do so. (Last year, it was Peter Pan XXX that won, and the year before that, it
was 24 XXX.) What propelled this one beyond the likes of, say, Batman v Superman XXX
or Spider-Man XXX? According to Braun, it was an almost serendipitous falling together
of every conceivable element.
“I am always positively anal about my projects,” he professed. “I storyboard each
shot and do a great deal of pre-production ... but all the care and preparation in the
world still requires the stars to align in a very specific way in order to create that magic
that sets a movie apart. And that is basically just what happened, thanks to everyone
being so invested in the project and excited to give 110 percent. Tommy Pistol,
who bleached his hair white and dyed it bright green to play The Joker, was simply
fantastic, and Kleio Valentien managed to top her AVN Award-winning performance
of last year as Harley Quinn with an even more intense and multi-layered portrayal of
the same character. And then there’s Asa Akira, who learned sword fighting for the
role; Lexington Steele, who is such a tremendous performer that people forget how
good an actor he is; Seth Gamble, who grew mutton chops and hired an Australian
dialect coach to master his Aussie accent for Captain Boomerang; Anna Bell Peaks,
who dyed her trademark pink hair blue for Killer Frost; Nyomi Banxxx, who came
out of retirement to bring Amanda Waller to life and managed to win Best Non-Sex
Performance for it; Katy Kiss, who truly understood Poison Ivy’s personality; Owen
Gray, who creeped everyone out with his twisted take on The Riddler; and Riley Steele,
sexy and lost as the powerless Enchantress, who dyed her hair black for the role. So
yes, it is a combination of timing, passion, and a massive dose of luck. And
people willing to dye their hair, because I am totally the Zohan of porn.”
All of that said, Braun still insists he did not foresee scoring a Movie of the
Year three-peat this year—rather, he says his chips were on Best Drama winner
The Preacher’s Daughter from fellow Wicked Pictures director Brad Armstrong. “I
had absolutely ZERO expectations to win Movie of the Year, and I was genuinely
shocked when it happened,” Braun attested.
“Right now I’m in pre-production on Justice League XXX,” he continued,
“which will likely be the biggest undertaking I’ve ever entertained, and there
is a massive amount of work involved in it. Costumes, especially in the case of
superheroes, are not only crucial to the fantasy I’m trying to sell, but they’re
also something I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid, so naturally I put a lot
of focus into making sure they are done right.
“I guess the secret is actually not much of a secret after all ... hard work and
passion usually pay off.”
MOVIE OF THE YEAR | By Peter Warren
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