Lexington Steele, owner of Mercenary Pictures, has announced the formation of Black Viking Pictures to distribute titles outside of Mercenary's usual offerings. Steele refers to the titles as "Mercenary avant garde."
Tentative plans call for Black Viking Pictures, a subsidiary of Mercenary, are to produce a solo male masturbation line directed by Tina Tyler, who helmed Volumes 1-2 of Mercenary's Fresh Out the Box and IronHead 3-7.
Black Viking will also have a transsexual series helmed by Don Picone, a native of Brazil who directed over 60 gonzo releases to date. The new lable will also unveil gay titles executive produced and directed by Jason Sechrest, a KSEX Radio personality.
Black Viking's titles will be promoted alongside Mercenary's other award-winning lines in January during the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.They will begin shipping in February. All titles will be exclusively distributed on what Mercenary and Black Viking call "Super DVD," which is their bonus-packed discs.
"There's a sizable gay audience who buys my product despite the fact that I'm a straight performer," Steele, who will continue to direct and appear exclusively in Mercenary's straight titles, said. "They know me, they know my work and they know Mercenary. In keeping with the Mercenary strategy of insertion into every market, the addition of Black Viking expands Mercenary Pictures in categories that I have an established fan base."
The men who appear in Black Viking's gay titles may also be cast in Mercenary's straight titles, if they can perform to the standards of Steele, who holds numerous performance awards and was named AVN Male Performer of the Year three times.
"The synergy we achieve is that the performers who appear in Sechrest's titles will also appear in Tina's solo series," Steele added. "I will recruit from the guys who work in Black Viking - I've long felt that the guys in the gay market would outperform 90 percent of the guys in the straight market. If I can recruit a few good men who could work in Mercenary's titles, who are genuinely attracted to women and are clean for STDs and HIV, I will place them in Mercenary's movies.
"I've promised my consumers insertion in every market. That being said, enter the Black Viking."
For more information, visit lexingtonsteele.com or email Hank at [email protected].
