It’s nothing special, just your run of the mill case of art imitating life. Or rather, life imitating pornography, art imitating life and pornography imitating art.

Nearly a year ago, members of a Yale group called Porn ‘N Chicken announced their plan to produce Yale’s first pornography flick, prompting months of premature media ejaculations. But a real film was conceived this week when Tribeca Productions announced they had signed a deal with the four would-be filmmakers to produce a TV movie about their skin flick that never was.

Meanwhile, a cabal of aspiring auteurs who remain undergraduates at Yale declared that they plan to continue where their predecessors left off.

The Comedy Central cable network has chosen “Porn ‘N Chicken” as their first original made-for-television movie, said Naomi Despres, executive vice president for production at Tribeca Productions, which is producing the film for the network.

The film will be “inspired,” in Despres’ words, by the experiences of Jamie Ponsoldt ’01, Colin Spoelman ’01, Joshua Newman ’01 and William Marino ’01, who will be credited as associate producers.

All four currently live in New York. Ponsoldt, a former president of the Yale College Council, is now attending film school and lives with Spoelman in New York. Newman also lives in New York, where he works with an investment research firm.

None of the four could be reached for comment.

The film is a comedy “championing the students in an irreverent way for their ingenuity, tenacity and sense of inventiveness” while “satirizing and celebrating the culture of academia,” Despres said.

A screenwriter has just been engaged for the film; the actual role of the Yale graduates in the writing process has not been defined, Despres said. Depending on how closely the script adheres to actual events, it also remains to be seen whether the film will be set — let alone shot — at Yale.

“We’d love for the Yale community to embrace the project and for it to be richly entertaining for them,” Despres said. “Whether we set it at Yale or not, they’ll know.”

Nonetheless, the unwritten screenplay will likely take considerable liberties with the facts — especially the fact that they never actually made a movie. The film’s heroes will likely make more progress on their project, Despres said.

The saga began in December 1999, after flyers appeared around campus inviting students to audition for Yale’s first adult movie.

A few weeks later, the filmmakers actually photographed a series of sexual acts involving two women and a leather strap-on, but were forced to destroy the footage when the participants withdrew permission to use it for the film.

A few weeks later, after the Yale Daily News ran a story on “The StaXXX”, the story was picked up by The New York Times, and subsequently by news outlets ranging from the Daily Variety to Danish National Radio.

Three Hollywood talent agencies began vying to represent the filmmakers, who began granting a flurry of anonymous interviews. Under Ponsoldt’s leadership, the group eventually chose Brian Siberell of Creative Artists Agency as their representative.

The four even posed for a masked portrait in Premiere, accompanying an account of their efforts by Jewish erotica writer Amy Sohn.

The interviews varied widely in their details — some even suggested that “The StaXXX” would be followed by a sequel dealing with George W. Bush’s exploits while at Yale. On one detail, there was no variation — the film, they insisted, was still being shot.

All four vehemently denied involvement with the film.

But by April no more footage had been shot, so a trio of juniors decided to step into the breach, shooting a trailer for the film which was then shown to students. The trailer featured considerable sexual acts, including footage shot in the stacks of Sterling Memorial Library.

The trailer’s editor, a then-junior who refused to give his name, said the scenes in the library were shot in the morning — while the library was open for business.

“It was scary, but it was a lot of fun, and not as difficult as we thought it would be,” he said.

The editor insists the film will be completed, although no concrete plans yet exist to finish it.

“As for what was shown at the end of last year, let me just say that you ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with those other guys.”

The hours of footage shot for the trailer are unlikely to be of much use in making a full-length film.

“None of the footage we shot was really plot driven. It was geared for a trailer,” he said. “That’s not always going to be the case.”

Andrew “Spicy BBQ” Camargo ’01, a member of this year’s Porn ‘N Chicken, declined to comment on the effect of the proposed film on his organization and its plans.

“I’m really happy for [the four graduates]. I just hope that they can pull it off and that they know what they’re doing,” Camargo said.