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from www.nypost.com – A Swedish smut king has been overthrown — and now it’s time to shoot the movie.
Berth Milton Jr. — who in the 1990s built a pornography empire in Europe called Private Media Group that became a publicly traded corporation on the Nasdaq — has been ousted from the helm of the company, The Post has learned.
As reported by The Post, the platinum-haired porn peddler last year had been dueling with investors who accused him of embezzling funds and trying to rig a board election.
But after being stripped of his CEO title last week, Milton said he’ll have his revenge on the big screen. That’s because a mainstream movie is in the works that, in addition to telling the story of Milton’s rise and fall, will serve as an exposé on the industry’s dirty dealings.
“A lot of people should be very scared about this movie — famous people, wealthy people, politicians,” Milton told The Post.
The $20 million project, which will seek an “R” rating, will be packaged, financed and marketed by William Morris Endeavor, the Hollywood agency headed by Ari Emanuel.
“Even I myself won’t look that good,” Milton added. “But I don’t care — it will be the truth.”
The ouster of the filthmonger comes as investing in indecency is making a comeback. Like Playboy and Penthouse, Private Media has been hit hard by the Internet, where free porn has become plentiful.
But insiders say established brands like Private are better positioned as the industry consolidates. Indeed, a fierce bidding war for adult pay-per-view TV distributor New Frontier Media has lately broken out, pitting the interactive smut site YouPorn against Hosken Consolidated, the financial arm of SACTWU, a South African labor union.
“Digital sales will remain our focus because they provide for terrific margins and growth,” said Charles Prast, Private’s new CEO.
“We have been heavily solicited by potential partners in this exciting high growth market.”
Nevertheless, Milton — whose father was an eccentric Swedish photographer widely credited with creating hardcore porn in the 1960s, including the full-color Private magazine — insists he’s glad to leave an industry that he never wanted to be a part of.
Indeed, the plot of the porn biopic “A Private Story,” to be shot this summer and released next year, will unfold “like a cross between ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘The Godfather,’” according to the film’s director, Daniel Fridell.
“We’re focusing on the relationship between the son and the father,” Fridell said.
After being thrown into a foster home by his father at age 4, Milton was yanked out at age 11 to work in his father’s sex shop. He fled as a teenager to South America to become a seaman before returning to Europe to make a fortune in real estate.
In the early 1990s, Milton took over Private from his father, who was beset by alcoholism and financial problems, and turned it into a blue-movie powerhouse, churning out million-dollar porn epics including “Gladiator,” a dirty version of the Russell Crowe vehicle that used many of the same shooting locations.
“It was a really sleazy business before I took over,” Milton said. “I changed everything — drug tests and health tests for the actors. I raised their salaries drastically.”
Milton’s father, however, accused his son of stealing the business and hired a biker gang to track him down and kill him in retaliation, according to the younger Milton. The father died in 2005.
“The senior has one story and the junior has another,” says Frederik von Krusenstjerna, who is producing a documentary on the father-and-son smut peddlers for Swedish TV. “The truth is probably somewhere between the two.”