Oh man, did you dudes hear about this shit goin' down between X-Play's Jeff Mullen and L.A. Direct's Derek Hay? Fuckin' a, man. Dudes be in' beefin'. For real.

Clearly, we love a good public feud as much as anyone else. This is evident in our ongoing coverage of the Taryn Thomas vs. us debacle, as well as our unhealthy interest in the Axl Rose vs. Vince Neil feud of years gone by (which happens to be even more entertaining than it was back when either of those dudes were somewhat relevant). So Bangs, knowing that I'm just about as out-of-the-loop as they come when it comes to actual working knowledge of the adult film industry, passed on to me a couple choices articles detailing the ever-growing beef between these two smut kingpins, knowing that I'd enjoy the read.

What's the deal? Well, there's been an ongoing war of words between these two dudes. Rather than rehash the whole thing word for word, I'll point you here for round one, here for round two, and here for round...uh...two point five, I guess.

In a nutshell, Mullen (known to many as Will Ryder, AVN's 2010 director of the year) started out by pointing his fingers towards Hay (prominent adult movie agent and owner of LA Direct Models), accusing him of turning down some choice roles on behalf of his talent, without having even informed the performers of the offers. The reason being, apparently X-Play has a practice of offering significantly less financial compensation for fucking in one of their films than other studios would offer. Derek Hay, acting in what he sees to be his clients' best interests, called bullshit on this practice (and goes into great detail about it in his open letter to Mullen).

Mullen explained that, the trade-off for not getting paid quite as much for a choice X-Play role is that the actresses' names would end up getting a shit-ton more press than they would for a smaller movie and have a significantly better chance of scoring some awards when AVN time rolled around. Given the fact that X-Play found itself walking off with a shit-ton of awards back in January, you can see where this logic originates. Mullen's movies are big-time fuckin' hits. Nobody's denying that.

“I think most actors have enough pride to want to be a part of something special that has a chance to be recognized as one of the great, entertaining movies of the year which usually results in soaring popularity for the individual participants.” Mullen remarked.

Also, a thing to take into account, according to the X-play camp, is the higher cost of pulling off a high-profile feature as well as the ever-worsening state of the video (or, heck, all media) business in general. Shit costs more and there ain't as much dough to go around.

“I understand he [Hay] is doing what he can to hold the line and keep talent rates high and I can respect that but we are all living in the same collapsing economic world with free porn beating us up and yesterday is gone and it’s not coming back,” Mullen lamented a few days back.

So, there's some of the reasoning on X-Play's side, I suppose. The economy is what it is and he's right, yesterday ain't coming back. Times are changing and folks need to cut costs where they can. But I dunno...the idea that a performer should get paid less to appear in a movie because it's most likely going to be a smash hit just sounds ridiculous to me. As hay points out, performers don't get any sort of bonus after they're done shooting. No royalties if the movie performs better than expected, nothing like that. They get their fee for the day, and that's it. So to me, it seems that somebody performing in one of Mullen's movies should get paid more than their usual fee, if anything. As Hay points out, if they find themselves receiving the same compensation for a big-time feature (with twice the time commitment involved), wouldn't a smaller-scale gonzo picture also assume they could pay less?

At this point, I'd like to add a quote from Hay explaining this point in further detail, but it's tough, because the guy's comments are all written in such fragmented non-sequitors that it's hard to quote. Dude makes some good points, though. I urge you to read his comments. It's a touchy subject, sure. And both sides have some valid points. But the points Hay's making seem to make a lot more sense to me.

More importantly, I can only think of three Axl Rose beefs off the top of my head. I thought I'd have more than that. But all I can bring to mind are the aforementioned Vince Neil feud, the time Axl beefed with Cobain and Courtney, and the mroe recent Axl vs. Hilfiger beef.

Okay. That's that for now. I urge everyone reading this to either decline to appear in Will Ryder's upcoming "Not POPPORN XXX" or demand tons and tons of money for it. Because you deserve it.

(Ed. Note - Careful Meat Ball, Mullen and X-Play supposedly registered the use of "Not" in regards to porn movies. That's a whole 'nother level of stupid that we shouldn't touch upon...)

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR You know, cuz of the beefin'...

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