If you’re a reader of adultfyi.com you read this news a couple of weeks ago. Today it was made official.

Porn Valley- Universal Pictures has agreed to distribute Inside Deep Throat, a sexually graphic documentary, chock-full of celebrities, produced by Brian Grazer for Imagine Entertainment. Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, Inside Deep Throat studies the cultural impact of the 1972 porn classic starring Linda Lovelace, www.xxxdeepthroat.com and reveals how anti-porn crusaders ended up enriching Mafia enforcers. It is also a tribute to the blowjob.

Like other top producers, Grazer is fascinated by the way movies and ideas develop mass appeal, or fail to do so. But he’s also interested in talking about the social models that shape them. And what is at the centre of his documentary is how Deep Throat became a mass phenomenon in the first place.

“There were 50 years, at least, of pornography that preceded Deep Throat. Deep Throat had a great title and it celebrated the right iconic act – it celebrated a blowjob,” said Grazer. “Because of the title and what it successfully celebrated, it became the most litigated, most profitable movie ever.”

The documentary includes interviews with high-profile names such as Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Carl Bernstein, Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and John Water.

Not to be outdone by Optimum – the releasers of Fahrenheit 9/11 – Universal, which was among the bidders for Michael Moore’s controversial film, has a shot at its own doc blockbuster. The graphic sex scenes however could present a problem. “It’s provocative, of course,” Grazer said. “We have to include archival footage that makes it unrated. It’s the accident of the skill of Linda Lovelace that turned a movie called The Nurses into a movie called Deep Throat that then became a cultural phenomenon.”

Formed by Grazer and Ron Howard in 1986, Imagine Entertainment is previously associated with comedies like The Nutty Professor and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, with documentary signalling a new direction for the production company.

Now Grazer is using Imagine to develop projects that are closer to his heart. And his interests are extremely varied, running from drama (The Cinderella Man) to thriller (Flight Plan) to animation; (Curious George) and now to documenting porn.

Partly financed by HBO, Inside Deep Throat is expected to be released early 2005.