Please wait...
Please wait...

NBC orders pirate drama

UPFRONTS: As well as its fall season schedule, NBC today announced its commitment to a new pirate drama, side-stepping the usual pilot and going straight to series.

Neil Cross, creator of BBC cop drama Luther, is to adapt Colin Woodard’s book The Republic of Pirates into a 10-part series titled Crossbones. The 18th century English pirate Blackbeard will feature large as will his gang’s real-life attempts to create an independent pirate republic in the Bahamas.

Production duo Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald (Gladiator, The Kite Runner) will exec produce the series, alongside Cross and Ted Gold (Three Rivers), via start-up Georgeville Entertainment, Parkes/MacDonald Productions, Universal Television and India-based Reliance Entertainment’s US investment arm Motion Picture Capital.

Production will begin in the fall. The move follows NBC picking up Heroes exec producer Bryan Fuller’s Silence of the Lambs prequel Hannibal in February, again skipping a pilot and going straight to series.

Crossbones is not the only pirate caper in town, however. Premium cable channel Starz greenlit Black Sail (working title) earlier this month, a pirate adventure series to be exec-produced by Transformers director Michael Bay.

Furthermore, FX recently ordered Port Royal, set in a 17th century Jamaican port overrun with pirates. It is produced by the LA-based GK-TV with Gale Ann Hurd’s Valhalla Entertainment (The Walking Dead).

RELATED ARTICLES

Please wait...