Corona | Coming Attractions

I bet that you didn't know that there was a pirate TV show in development. It's called Black Sails, and it will air on the Starz cable channel in 2014. While that's still a good chunk of time away from us, filming on the series is slated to commence before the end of the year in Cape Town, Africa.

Starz has just hired the director of the pilot episode for Black Sails, and it's Neil Marshall who will call the first shots. The director of The Descent, Doomsday, Centurion and an episode of HBO's Game of Thrones show, Marshall is an experienced genre director and is likely to add his kinetic style of action to the show's production.

Adding to that mixture of talent, Black Sails is being executive produced by Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes producing partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form. The eight-episode first season is a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island tale and follows the pirate adventures of a young buccaneer named John Silver in the days before he became a feared pirate captain.

Silver is one of the crew onboard the pirate ship commanded by Captain Flint, considered the most dangerous pirate captain in his day. Their home is a port called New Providence Island, renowned for its debauchery and criminal element, but also nestled in a corner of paradise.

Black Sails takes place 20 years before the events chronicled in Stevenson's Treasure Island. Casting decisions have not been made yet.