Deal Maker XXX-traordinary
His Coastline operation has racked up over $100 million
in licenses since 1981

CANOGA PARK, Calif .– David Kravis this year celebrates his 30th year in adult, and for most of that time he’s been one of the industry’s most successful power brokers. His company, which started out as Coastline Films, is now Coastline Licensing International, Inc.

“The business of Coastline is the rights licensing business,”Kravis told AVN. “Our main focus today is in broadcast media, worldwide pay TV-satellite-Pay Per View systems, and all the new media— Video on Demand, IPTV, streaming Internet, mobile—essentially all the new convergenttechnologies. This could be the most exciting time for our industry.“We still do some foreign DVD licensing. It’s a diminishing market but nonetheless it still exists.”Working out of a modest but superbly equipped (for editing and DVD authoring as well as dealmaking)
two-story building on a busy Canoga Park thoroughfare, Kravis goes about the business of putting together deals between adult studios and a world-spanning list of licensees. “There are close to 6,000 contracts we’ve written in the Coastline database—just since we’ve been computerized.”And over $100 million in licenses since the company was founded. A young man with a business degree, Kravis started as a theatrical distributor in 1977—Bmovies, drive-in thrillers. Theater-owners, awed by the success of the porn house down the block,began asking him for X-rated product, and he was able to help.

In 1979, “a little film came out, Debbie Does Dallas, which I started distributing on the west coast.” The “phenomenal business”he did convinced him that adult was the place to be. When home video took off he shifted to licensing videotape rights to companies like VCX. He
also started attending the film markets where foreign buyers came to snap up American movies. “I saw that as a marketplace opportunity no one had really cultivated,”he said. So in 1981 he formed Coastline Films as an international licensing company. Only three or four other people (including Cal Vista’s Sidney Niekerk) were doing the same thing.

Among Coastline’s current clients are, to name but a few,Penthouse, Zero Tolerance-Third Degree-Black Ice, Ninn Worx, Adam & Eve, Smash, Visage, Sin City, and on the gay side Raging Stallion, Jet Set, Magnus and In-X-Cess. He also handles product from foreign studios, primarily TMC Content Group, formerly Erotic Media.

But it goes beyond just sales. “I don’t consider myself an ordertaker.I consider myself a deal maker.” One of his bigger recent achievements was brokering an agreement between Penthouse and New Frontier Media. “They had been talking for years but couldn’t seem to get anywhere as to how their two companies would work together. As an agent for Penthouse, I became the middle man, and within 60 days they were able to put together a ten-year broadcast deal.” He calls his work “a relational business. I have a lot of long term relationships with the customers. I believe one of the reasons I am successful is because I do study the marketplaces.

I really am concerned not only with selling the studios but with the buyers’ business as well. The more successful they are the more product they’re going to buy from us.”
Kravis has also made a mark as a producer. When the Spice Channel started up some years ago they were reluctant to compete directly with Playboy TV. “They wanted storyline movies but [aimed at] a ‘blue-collar market’ as opposed to Playboy.”So they commissioned Kravis, who produced 10 movies a month

for them for two years—“240 movies just for the Spice Channel”— working with an array of top directors, shooting on video in hard and soft versions. “That was when I had round the clock editors. I had 10 movies in pre-production, 10 movies in production and 10 movies in postproduction at any one time—30 movies at a time. It can be done.” He has also produced erotic films for mainstream cable channels. The term “Skinemax,” referring to soft-core fare on Showtime or Cinemax, could well have begun with productions—Different Strokes, Midnight Confessions, In-Demand’s Erotic Heat—he shepherded into existence. “Produce-to-order is my terminology,” he says, “if I have a
buyer and they have a specific need I can fill, I’m back in production.” A youthful-looking 54, Kravis shows not the slightest sign of slowing down. “I enjoy this industry, I think it’s full of colorful characters, I have a good time with what I do, I have good relationships with people I do business with, I travel the world .”He grins. “It’s not such a horrible business to be in.”