Pent-Up Playhouse
A film set is a playhouse. Penthouse’s Bob Guccione was a film investor, but he never invested in a film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Bob did, however, almost produce a film starring another martial arts actor - Gary Daniels. Titled The Zodiac Conspiracy, it was going to be filmed in Hong Kong but it didn’t happen despite being announced as a five million U.S.$ project. While it was a small budget for Hollywood standards, that was big for Hong Kong standards when you look at an incredibly bombastic movie like Wong Jing’s High Risk (1995). The Zodiac Conspiracy was first announced in March 1997 when Gary Daniels participated in a promotional photo shoot that took place in Santa Monica. This was a year after starring in a U.S. film made by a Hong Kong film company. This was Seasonal’s Bloodmoon, which began filming in May 1996 and was released on video in June 1997. The Zodiac Conspiracy was to commence filming in the summer of 1997.
Variety reported in February 1997 that Bob Guccione was still wanting to produce a biopic based on Catherine the Great. This Russian empress was known for being highly promiscuous, which is why Bob Guccione wanted it to be his next film after the equally libidinous Caligula (1979). This co-starred Helen Mirren, hence why she was cast in HBO’s 2019 miniseries - Catherine the Great. Forty years earlier, Bob wanted to cast either Jessica Lange or Nastassja Kinski. By the time that it was 1996, a possible contender emerged in the form of Natasha Henstridge. She was firmly established as a star thanks to an erotic Sci-Fi film called Species (1995). This manifested into her landing a starring role in a Ringo Lam film called Maximum Risk (1996). Ringo is a Hong Kong film director who became disappointed in Hollywood because of this film. As Jean-Claude Van Damme noted in an interview for a French magazine called Impact, Natasha’s role was originally much bigger. But, then again, we all know how JCVD felt threatened when it looked like Lance Henriksen was equalling him in screen-time for John Woo’s first Hollywood film - Hard Target (1993).
You might question why any respected actor would want to be associated with the founder of Penthouse, but astronaut Buzz Aldrin didn’t mind being seen in the same photo as Bob Guccione. In fact, author Bret Easton Ellis mentioned on Twitter that he had been working with director Nicolas Roeg on Catherine the Great for Bob. Bret, who’s gay, thought that it was a fun experience in spite of the fact that the film did not materialize. The twist is that the 1997 Variety article reported that Nicolas was only going to write whereas Bob was going to direct. This may seem worrying but Bob assured the press that the film was going to be shot “much, more artistically” than Caligula albeit there would be two versions - one filmed for an R sensibility while the other would be X. This is why the film was going to be more expensive than Caligula by a few million dollars. In a December 1997 article for an Australian newspaper, it was reported that Faye Dunaway “apparently” agreed to play the “mature” Catherine whereas the young Catherine would be played by María Ellingsen (below).
In a late November 1995 issue for Variety, Faye Dunaway (below) was quoted as saying that she would agree to act in the film as long as she had a body double for the nude scenes. It was also reported that Bob Guccione co-wrote the screenplay with Nicolas Roeg and Gerry O’Hara. Financially, Faye was to receive a percentage from the box office income of both the R and NC-17 versions. It’s because of this that the budget went from 30 million in 1995 to 20 million by the time that it was 1997. Dunaway was very impressed with the lavish production plans since she viewed the storyboards. The set designer was the Oscar-winning Gianni Quaranta. Bob Guccione had spread himself too thin since he was busy in Budapest where he helped Andrew Blake film what was supposed to be the first in a series of equally erotic Marquis de Sade stories. Intriguingly, Faye had co-starred in a Roman Polanski film that received financing from Bob Guccione. This was Chinatown (1974). He then financed The Day of the Locust (1975) - a film adaptation of a book where there is a character named Faye Greener.
Penthouse was only one of many magazines that Bob Guccione had published through his company, General Media International. The vice chairman and chief operating officer was Kathy Keeton, his wife. While Bob was publicizing Catherine the Great at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1996, he learned that Kathy was suffering from the later stages of breast cancer. In September 1997, she died. Since I have referenced Cannes, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Roman Polanski, I have decided to combine two tweets from an actress named Pleasant Gehman along with an accompanying photo: “1999. My first night at The Cannes Film Festival, at a penthouse party with Jean-Claude Van Damme. His mom was there, she was cute in a polka dot Chanel suit, and so nice. That’s Roman Polanski in the background - I didn’t realize he was at the party til I saw this pic. I was there with longtime collaborator director Steve Balderson, who was showing his film Pep Squad.”
As for the other martial arts movie star, Gary Daniels, The Zodiac Conspiracy was going to be about a photojournalist who is on assignment to shoot a zodiac calendar with thirteen beautiful models that turns into a secret mission to foil a kidnapping. In theory, that should be twelve models but I suppose the technicality is that one of the models has a twin whose job is to be a spy. In the below photo, Bob Guccione can be seen in the middle. The Chinese man on the right is Charles Wang, who played a doctor in 1986 for a Jean-Claude Van Damme film called Bloodsport. Charles was a producer whose contributions facilitated the making of two other JCVD movies filmed in Hong Kong - Kickboxer (1989) and Double Impact (1991). Charles would later be credited as an executive producer of a film starring Milla Jovovich - Ultraviolet (2006). Charles owned a production company called Salon Films. When people outside of Hong Kong wanted to use equipment for one of their films or TV shows, Salon Films was the company to go to. This includes Steven Spielberg when he was making Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).
After Charles Wang died in 2007, a gaffer named Andrew Rawson had commented on a cinematography forum. Coincidentally, Andrew had worked on JCVD’s Hard Target and a Gary Daniels movie called Fist of the North Star (1995). On the forum, Andrew indirectly referred to a film called DNA (a 1996 movie starring a martial arts actor named Mark Dacascos): “I have a great story about Mr. Wang. About 12 years ago we were doing a film in the Philippines and were having nightmare problems with the grip/electric and camera house in Manila. Our producer was friends with Mr. Wang, so we flew to Hong Kong where Mr. Wang’s car picked us up. Before heading to Salon Films to start taking care of business, though, his driver took us to Mr Wang’s house where Mr Wang met us and insisted we have tea before any talk of business. It was a great experience and needless to say Salon Films bailed us out and we had a successful shoot. He was indeed a legend and will be missed.”
As for why Bob Guccione would have wanted to do business with Charles Wang, there was something seedy that I learned in an article posted by South China Morning Post. Before the nineties, Charles called the film liaison office to get permission to use the Flagstaff House as the background for some footage. The Flagstaff House was the official residence of the Commander for the British Forces in Hong Kong. To the shock of staid officials, the background appeared in a softcore movie with the regal building being made out to be a brothel. This must have been for a Hong Kong movie that was rated Category III, and it just so happened that the Penthouse magazine had a H.K. edition.