The History Channel is gearing up for a new miniseries about the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, the first successful English settlement in the Americas. According to The Hollywood Reporter, John Siberia (Hell On Wheels) will write and executive produce the project. The series will be based on Benjamin Woolley’s 2007 book Savage Kingdom: The True Story Of Jamestown, 1607, And The Settlement Of America, which follows the group of men—including a “one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric, and a government spy”—who left London to start a new life in America more than 400 years ago. (Frankly, more middle school history teachers should bring up that one-armed pirate thing.)
The Jamestown miniseries joins the ranks of an onslaught of recently announced History Channel projects, including a Halle Berry-produced show about Hannibal (the military leader, not the cannibal), Eli Roth's demon-slaying Jesus series, another starring Adrien Brody as Houdini, and a reboot of Roots. Those who don’t want to wait for this Jamestown miniseries to premiere can go ahead and watch Disney’s Pocahontas followed by Terrence Malick’s The New World, which should be basically the same thing, minus the historical complexity.