Michael Bay is set to gratuitously explode onto television screens with his first weekly series, a pirate drama that was just picked up by Starz presumably before being dropped on top of a downtown high-rise. In a perfect match of man and milieu, Bay will executive produce Black Sails, a prequel set 20 years before the events of Treasure Island that will reimagine the history of Robert Louis Stevenson's characters with the same deliberate respect for source material that Bay and Starz have demonstrated time and again. Of course, it would take more contrivance than usual for Bay to work an alien in there, but Starz seems poised to add its traditional calling cards once Black Sails premieres in 2014: The story of a young, "fast-talking" John Silver takes place in a "debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers, a place defined by its enlightened ideals and stunning brutality," which roughly translates to "there will be boobs and sword fights." "Pirates—the original Bad Boys," some Starz ad copywriter is probably already planning on pitching, but now that we've made fun of it, he can't.
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