LOS ANGELES — Although L.A. Coliseum officials deny that they approved Anabolic Video’s shooting of a porn film at the stadium, the studio did have a permit and assumed everything was legit.
A firestorm of controversy erupted yesterday when the L.A. Times reported that Anabolic used the L.A. landmark to make its 2001 movie, “The Gangbang Girl #32.”
The paper has since reported that Film L.A., a company that handles shoots for the city and county, issued a permit with the Coliseum's address as the location, but eyebrows are raised because the filing lists the title as "Guns Brandished 33."
A description of the film said it would have scenes with "models against scenery" and a "re-enactment of [football] players in practice game."
Anabolic founder Christopher Alexander told XBIZ that he only first heard of the non-porn title on the permit after the Times contacted him. He said Anabolic hired a location manager and company to handle the details of the shoot.
Alexander also said in an email that he supervised the filming and assumed Coliseum officials had authorized it.
"Obviously there was somebody there making things happen," Alexander said. "As far as I knew at the time, everything was 100 percent completely legit."
“Like any shoot there are always obstacles to overcome, I remember arriving at the location late in the afternoon only to find that the field had not yet been chalked as we had been told that it would be. So, we started capturing some shots that we might use while a couple of Production Assistants ran off in search of chalk for us to mark off at least part of the field with.
"As the night wore on we noticed a couple of LAPD helicopters observing from above. We figured that with the heightened security at that time they were probably wondering why the Coliseum lights were on well into the night until they saw that it was obviously a movie production with a huge jib and a pretty good sized cast and crew,” Alexander said.
But Coliseum officials deny any knowledge of the shoot.
An attorney for the Coliseum Commission, Assistant Los Angeles County Counsel Thomas Faughnan, said in a statement to the Times that he did not become aware of the porn filming until earlier this month, in response to a media inquiry.
"The Commission had no record of the filming and the Commission did not authorize it," Faughnan said.
What added insult to injury was that the shoot took place shortly after the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Alexander admitted that the shoot did in fact take place on September 28, 2001 — two weeks after the attack. "We almost canceled the scene because of 9-11, out of respect for those who had lost their lives in the twin towers. However, after learning from the location manager that since he'd already paid for and booked that date we had a choice of ‘use it or loose it’ so we went forward with the production.”
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