The Hollywood Reporter
News flash: Wild ‘Girls’ off to MGM
Thursday, October 3, 2002

MGM is hoping to bust out a new franchise.

“Girls Gone Wild,” the video phenomenon built around hard partying, breast-baring girls, is making its way to the big screen thatnks to a deal that the franchise’s founder, Joe Francis, has struck with MGM and producers Jay Froberg and Greg Suess of ROAR. The writing team of Dina Marie Chapman and Hopwood DePree (“Rhinoskin”) is set to write the feature film – called “Girls Gone Wild” – which MGM will distribute worldwide, including all ancillary pipelines.

The “Girls Gone Wild” brand launched in 1998 as a direct-response DVD and video brand with reality based releases featuring women baring all on camera at such events as spring break parties and Mardi Gras. Each release – too date there have been 83 separate offerings, including “best of” collections and compilations, according to Francis – has rolled out unrated.

The feature version, which will aim for an R rating, will be a fictionalized story following the intersecting adventures of a group of college coeds as they descend on Panama City Beach, Fla., to find out just how wild things can get.

Francis will serve as an executive producer on the project

through his Mantra Entertainment along with the producers at MGM-based ROAR. Francis said he’s excited about creating a film from his brand, but he said he won’t settle for just an average film.

“It’s going to be a fictionalized version of ‘Girls Gone Wild,’ with love stories and everything in between,” he said. “We will take elements of the core product and bring it to the silver screen, which we all know takes a hell of a lot more creativity. And at the end of the day, all I want is a great movie. I don’t need the money and would never want a piece of garbage with my name on it.”

Conversations about the feature project began about six months ago. “My personal conversations with (MGM vice chairman and chief operating officer) Chris McGurk convinced me that they are the right place to go right now with a chain of franchise pictures,” Francis said, referring to such newly launched MGM franchises as “Legally Blonde” and “Barbershop.”

The hope for Francis and his producers is that this initial project is the first in a long series of films.

Since its inception in 1998, the brand has received much media attention and has become a staple of the late-night infomercial scene. More recently, well-known names have collaborated with Francis on new projects, including “Girls Gone Wild Doggy Style” with Snoop Dogg, taped this year at Mardi Gras, and the upcoming video with Eminem that