Everything you are reading here should be considered a rumor – as in an unproven fact. These rumors may or may not be true, in part or in whole. You should never consider a rumor as a fact. What you read here may be in part true, or in whole completely false. That’s the thing about rumors, you never really know. I am only sharing with you water cooler stories I have been hearing. They may or may not be true. THEY ARE RUMORS.
Last June we reported that Manwin was in talks to buy Digital Playground. Truth be told, by the time we had posted that story they had been in talks for awhile and had already started to take over the day to day operations of the DP family of websites.
It would take another two months however before the buyout would take place. It took so long because according to rumors DP was over valuing their catalog. Well, at least in the eyes of the buyers.
It was during this time Jesse Jane had decided not to renew her contract with Digital Playground and made a very public to do about it. Jesse Jane’s people went into talks with several other companies including taking a meeting with Brazzers. Just days later she announced she had resigned with Digital Playground. Insiders are now saying it was actually a deal with Manwin that Jesse Jane did her new deal with because at that time they had already secretly bought out the company. So the insinuation that the contract girls would be cast aside after AEE in Vegas, is ridiculous.
Mike South and Adult FYI are reporting buyout sum was $50 million but I have a source that says that number is very wrong. It includes a large up front cash payment that is nearly double that and over the next five years additional payments will be made. He doesn’t know an exact amount but estimates it to be around $150 million over a period of 5 years.
The rumor is now that Manwin is in talks with Vivid. My sources are saying these talks have been going on for a few months now and are all but a done deal. One Vivid insider says that Hirsch made his money off of some big Playboy deal a few years ago and since then he just doesn’t give a fuck. He’s been looking for an excuse to leave porn since then anyway.
Another insider is saying that the Vivid deal will not include a continuation of the Axel Braun contract. According to a few different people he is to hard to work with. “Not worth the bullshit that comes with working with him”. “His ego an antics make him to much of a liability“.
So who does that leave us with? If Manwin buys Vivid that means they control all the major studios except Bluebird Films. Think about it …… there is Wicked Pictures, Vivid Entertainment, Digital Playground and Bluebird Films. They are the big 4 in the jizz biz, making the big budget features.
Will Bluebird Films cave and join the other major studios? My sources say “not in a million fucking years”. Owner Paul Chaplin was once quoted as saying he was never in the porn business to make money, he makes the movies he wants to watch. Perhaps that will be the one thing that keeps Manwin at bay. We shall see.
In the mean time we have a few other Manwin rumors to address. Not to long ago there were reports that Zero Tolerance were in “financial dire straights” that the only thing making them any sort of money was their toy line but with their venture with the now bankrupt Store Program ended, things took a turn for the worse, even in that division of the company. This made them prime for takeover by Manwin. While to date Manwin hasn’t really made any move on the lower tier “gonzo type studios” like Zero Tolerance, Red Light District, Elegant Angel, etc. because Zero Tolerance is considered to be the best in that category there was always the chance that Manwin would consider it but my sources are saying to date that is not the case. They would rather just freeze out the smaller guys and let them go out of business than waste their money and resources on trying to acquire them.
One Brazzers insider said that Manwin might have considered Zero Tolerance a little more seriously if their collection of websites weren’t run so piss poorly. I don’t know how much if any of that is true, but that is what I am hearing.
Next I heard a rumor about Manwin in talks to buy out a network company like Webquest. I talked to my source who said “Webquest? LOL Why would Manwin buy them? They have no real value. They are only worth the value of their biggest contract which they could lose at any time. Then what would they be worth?”
So if they aren’t going to go after traffic networks, I wonder what they will focus on buying next? AVN? Maybe XBIZ?
