Pirate-themed Starz show Black Sails snags director Neil Marshall to lead the pillaging and plundering

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Neil Marshall red curtain

It’s been a few months since last we heard about “Black Sails”, the Michael Bay-produced prequel to TREASURE ISLAND that has found life as an eight episode Starz series, but that news drought* shouldn’t last much longer now that director Neil Marshall (CENTURION, DOOMSDAY, THE DESCENT) has been brought in to direct the pilot.

Marshall is an unapologetically fun director who crafts some brutal and thrilling stuff (see also DOG SOLDIERS, a campy but fun as hell werewolf flick), so his hiring speaks volumes in favor of my carving out some time from all of my movie watching and “Mad Men” catch-up to check out “Black Sails”.  Pre-production is currently clipping along in Cape Town, South Africa, with a tentative eye towards airing the series early in 2014.  Hopefully I’ll be done with “Mad Men” by then, though at the rate I’m going…

Marshall is also currently in pre-production for Dracula tale THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER, which has been kicked around for bloody ever (the last rendition had David Slade directing) and currently might maybe hopefully have Viggo Mortensen attached to play the captain of the ill-fated ship that was chosen to ferry Dracula from his old home in Transylvania to his new home in London.

Plot recap: The eight-episode series is set 20 years before the events in Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island and chronicles the adventures of fabled buccaneer Captain Flint and his men.

Jesse Jane pirate pic

How does one possible decide which sexy pirate picture to post?

*Speaking of droughts, where has all the rum gone? Too overdone still? Okay, okay – where has all the grog gone? There, that has a better ring to it anyway.  +1 for alliteration.

Source: Deadline Hollywood

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