Mercenary Enterprises Introduces Black Viking Pictures

CANOGA PARK, Calif. ? Lexington Steele, owner of Mercenary Pictures, announced the formation of Black Viking Pictures to distribute titles outside of Mercenary’s usual offerings, and titles that Steele refers to as “Mercenary avant garde.”

Tentative plans call for Black Viking Pictures, a subsidiary of Mercenary, to produce a solo male masturbation line, directed by AVN Award-winning performer Tina Tyler and director of volumes 1 and 2 of Mercenary’s Fresh Out the Box and IronHead volumes 3 through 7, featuring the straight male performers featured in Mercenary’s titles; a Brazilian-produced transsexual series helmed by Don Picone, a Brazilian native who directed over 60 gonzo releases to date, as well as gay titles executive produced and directed by Jason Sechrest, of KSEX internet radio fame, for Black Viking.

Black Viking’s titles will be promoted alongside Mercenary’s other award-winning lines during the January 2006 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas and will begin shipping in February. All titles will be exclusively distributed on Super DVD.

“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