Directors Chris Ward and Ben Leon have completed filming on Lords of the Jungle, Raging Stallion Studio’s biggest shoot to date.
The movie, scheduled for a November / December release, was shot entirely on the Big Island of Hawaii during a two week period in early September. Fifteen scenes for two features were filmed with a cast of nearly 20 men. In addition to Lords of the Jungle, a second production crew headed up by director David Hempling shot another Hawaii-based feature film that remains as yet untitled. During filming, Naked Sword was on hand to shoot a full-length documentary that will be released on the Naked Sword network, and as part of the multi-DVD package. Ward also filmed a scene for his big spring movie, Mirage, which is the sequel to Arabesque.
Lords of the Jungle, stars Jake Deckard as the leader of a group of men who wash ashore on a tropical island, the result of a disaster at sea. The movie chronicles their struggle to survive and their wait for rescue in a testosterone-drenched environment. A major plot twist at the end of the film comes as a shocker. Co-stars include RSS exclusives Blake Nolan, Collin O’Neal, Marc LaSalle, and Justin Christopher. Chris Ward is also premiering two new models, hairy boy-toy Steve Cruz and amazing discovery Rambo. Both men are scheduled for additional work with the studio, and Rambo, a hot, hairy, tattooed black stud, has been signed as Raging Stallion’s newest exclusive. Matt Cole, Jason Crew, Jay Black, and Mario Cruz round out the cast, making Lords of the Jungle one of the most ethnically diverse movies of all time.
Another star of the film is the dense tropical jungle that dominates the sides of the Hawaiian volcanoes. As Chris Ward noted, “we did not want to shoot in beautiful Hawaiian gardens–other studios have already done that. My goal when I planned this movie was to film the real jungle–harsh and cruel, but beautiful. Huge vines, difficult terrain, bugs, bats, heat…you get the idea. These guys are lost in the jungle–it is not an easy place to be.”
Ward makes no apologies for the fact that his inspiration for this film was Kristen Bjorn’s classic, Amazon Adventure.
The shoot, which by the end of principal photography has already cost the studio over $100,000, was beset with problems stemming from shooting in such rugged terrain. Locations often required multi hour hikes and climbs and every cast and crew member ended up with bruises or cuts. One of the company 4-wheel drive vehicles was nearly lost when it rolled into a hidden gully, and the film crew lost its greatest physical asset when a rouge wave swamped the main video camera. In the final days of the shoot the entire cast and crew set off for a pleasure hike to Kilauea, the active volcano. During the hike the surface flow of molten lava suddenly increased and the entire party found itself standing on very hot rock that was oozing lava only three feet away. A few anxious moments later, with shoes starting to melt, an escape path was found. No one was hurt in the incident.
Even so, both Ward and co-director Ben Leon were very satisfied with the shoot. An enthused Ben Leon commented, “The only thing more amazing than the tropical jungle was the intensity of the sex. We filmed over a dozen men, naked except for their boots, under a blazing tropical sun and in the most intense heat that I have ever experienced. They fucked with every drop of energy they had–all giving great performances under difficult conditions. We struggled thru each day and after every scene we walked away with the most stunning sex that I have ever had the honor to shoot.”
The marketing campaign for Lords of the Jungle will be the largest in the studio’s history and reflective of the size of the project. Like Arabesque before it, Lords of the Jungle is expected to be one of the top movies of the year.
