Guccione will shift gears from his collapsed career with Penthouse and his $40 million debt-ridden Manhattan mansion and relocate to South Beach, Florida to reunite with his estranged son, Bob Guccione Jr., founder of Spin and Gear magazines.
As part of the reunion, the father-and-son team also plan to relaunch science magazine Omni, which Guccione founded in the 1970s.
According to reports, the reunion between father and son took place last Christmas and was organized by Guccione's fiancé April Warren.
"We embraced deeply and never discussed the past," Guccione Jr. told the news media at the time.
Guccione Sr. still remains estranged from three of his other children, although he remains friendly with one of his daughters.
After founding Penthouse in 1965, Guccione's troubles began three years ago when magazine subscription sales for men's magazines took a nosedive as online adult entertainment took off.
Once heralded as the third-largest porn publishing empire, Penthouse faced extinction when advertisers began dropping off and Guccione's General Media filed for Chapter 11 in August 2003.
At its height, Penthouse circulation reached 5.2 million copies, but in recent years those numbers dipped to 460,000, whereas rival Playboy maintains a circulation of 3.2 million.
After a lengthy tussle with creditors and bankruptcy court, a year later, Guccione lost control of the Manhattan mansion and lost Penthouse to PET Capital, owned by Marc Bell Capital Partners LLC, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based private investment firm. However, Guccione, still owns almost all of General Media’s parent company, Penthouse International, which did not file for bankruptcy protection but no longer controls the magazine.
According to reports, Guccione is planning to make his move to Florida later this year where he hopes to not only revive Omni but launch subsequent publications dealing with arts and entertainment.
There are also unconfirmed reports that Guccione intends to return to the Catholic faith, which he once considered his calling.
