Michael Bay is setting sail on a new adventure with Starz.
The cable network has given a straight-to-series greenlight for Bay's small-screen pirate epic "Black Sails" with an eight-episode season order.
The series, which will likely premiere in 2014, will take place 20 years before Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel "Treasure Island," following the adventures of pirate Captain Flint and his crew, including a young Long John Silver.
"Threatened with extinction on all sides, they fight for the survival of New Providence Island, the most notorious criminal haven of its day -- a debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers, a place defined by both its enlightened ideals and its stunning brutality," Starz said of the series.
Production is scheduled to begin at Cape Town Studios in Cape Town, South Africa later this year.
"Transformers" and "Pearl Harbor" director Bay will executive-produce with his Platinum Dunes partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form. "Jericho" creator Jon Steinberg and "Touch" producer Robert Levine created the series; Steinberg and Levine will also executive-produce, with Steinberg serving as showrunner.
