In an interview with www.avn.com this past week, Max Hardcore talked about his plans for the future. We’ll look at his Tarot cards this coming week to see what that’s all about.

Meanwhile Hardcore, who was sentenced to 46 months, fined nearly $100,000 and did a stretch in La Tuna Federal Prison on obscenity charges, made his own predictions: no more pissing, vomiting or fisting. That’s because the US versions of his movies- the only ones available now- have been sanitized and swept clean of any offensive material. There’s over 200 titles in his catalog.

“The distributors now can distribute our movies with confidence,” he said.

“I’d like to emphasize that our U.S. videos are, by comparison, tamer than much of the material that’s available now; some of those other scenes are really strong.

“When we were going through this ordeal, I had a chance to talk to the prosecutors and people surrounding the case, and they said specifically what they were looking for was the European material; they weren’t concerned with and they weren’t going after the American versions, so people can distribute our movies with confidence.” It was the European versions with scenes of urination and fisting, that prosecutors were concerned with.

During the course of Max’s prosecution, the US government also confiscated his website. Max, however, is operating a new one, www.MaxHardcoreTV.com
and his movies are still available for viewing on sites like AEBN and Adult Rentals, and his DVDs are still being distributed by companies like Premier Sales and Nova Products.

He acknowledges that many companies are still afraid to stock his American-version product, even though it played no part in his prosecution.

Hardcore, who says that he took a bullet for the industry, is asking that distributors “do the right thing” and support him.

They should do this for several reasons,” he told AVN.

“First of all, it’s the right thing to do; second of all, I took a bullet for the industry. I set the mark. We know now what you can do and what you can’t do. Before that, a lot of people were doing similar things, but it was me that got busted.

“If you’re in this industry, one would hope and assume that you’re a believer in and supporter of free speech,” Hardcore continued.

“Well, if you’re really a supporter of free speech, then get in there and do the right thing and support my product just as you would support John Stagliano’s and Jeff Mike’s. [Both of whom also went to trial on obscenity charges.]

Hardcore feels that his legal team which consisted of Lou Sirkin, Jennifer Kinsley, Jamie Benjamin, Daniel Aaronson, and his personal lawyer Jeffrey Douglas did the best job they could have done under the circumstances, but their hands were tied.

“They can’t challenge the legitimacy of the law itself,” he says.

“They have to respond to the government’s accusations, and as we discovered, it’s easy to bulldoze a jury, to push a jury into believing, because you’re in a federal court, you’re on their turf—the jury goes along with peer pressure to convict you because they’re not familiar with this material.”

Describing prison life, Hardcore told AVN the experience benefited him. He worked out continually and kept journals of his progress.

“I had to better myself in ways that really matter,” he adds.

“I quit smoking and drinking, and I reevaluated and readjusted my attitude towards things to get greater appreciation of life and love and other people’s feelings and concerns.”

Hardcore, who was assigned to a low security prison, and as such was a dormitory, kept busy corresponding with fans from all over the world.

“I got so many fan letters. Fans that really believed in me—hundreds—and I responded to everyone. It said to me there’s a tremendous demand for my movies yet, and it gave me a lot of comfort to know that I’m going to be back. And even in prison, Team Max survived.

“[Although] we were in a low facility, it was still serious business. They had double fences around, 20-foot fences with barbed wire on top. You weren’t getting out of there, no way. The worst thing about being in prison is the helplessness. You can’t really do much to affect things going on the outside. It was very frustrating, but I made do with writing letters and giving the guys as much assistance as I could.”

Hardcore credits John Stagliano, www.evilangel.com who helped him financially as well as Evil Angel’s Christian Mann, Joey Silvera, Rocco Siffredi and Nacho Vidal; performer/director Rick Savage; Anabolic’s Christopher Alexander; Topco Sales’ Scott Tucker; California Exotic Novelties’ CEO Susan Colvin; Laura Henkels of the Erotic Museum; Oscar from Shotz Video; Mike from Nova Products; former AVN staffer Jared Rutter; attorney Clay Calvert, who’s written several articles about Hardcore’s case; and Hardcore’s long-time girlfriend, Layla Rivera.

Hardcore acknowledges his mistakes including the people he inadvertently or unintentionally harmed, either physically or mentally.

“I sincerely apologize to these people,” he states.

“It was never my intention to harm anyone but when you’re making a movie and the pressure’s on, it’s easy to push a little too hard sometimes, and I hope to never repeat doing that again, that’s not my intention, because I want everybody to know I love people and help everyone that I can.”

As for the future, Hardcore said he’s exploring the potential to work within the extreme sports categories similar to or like the X-Games, and also racing of all types, specifically auto racing.

“I’ve always been interested in that. I think there’s a market for it. Certainly, with more and more channels available, there’s a greater demand for content, and we’re well-positioned as a production company to move forward. We’ve got the equipment, we’ve got the know-how and we’ve got the drive to succeed.”

While ESPN may have a lock on most of those opportunities, Hardcore feels that smaller production companies have a way in to do specialty pieces.

“We’ll be moving into this directly,” he avows.

“My approach to business is to work hard and keep pushing forward and accepting new challenges—the bulldozer approach—and I find when I do this that I discover new opportunities and I move into them, and normally we would discover things that are fun to do and pay very well, and that’s our goal. We have to be profitable in order to continue.”

He’s also mulling an apparel line.

“I thought a good name would be Max Hardwear, or a line of tools, Max Hardware—tools for work and tools for pleasure.”