Lionsgate TV wants Villains of All Nations

From Deadline – Lionsgate TV wants to raise the Jolly Roger. Lynda La Plante, the writer/producer behind the acclaimed Prime Suspect series (the Helen Mirren original), is developing a drama series based on Villains of All Nations, Marcus Rediker’s non-fiction tome about the golden age of piracy. Alexandra Milchan (Street King) and Alessandro Camon (Thank You for Smoking) will executive produce.

Rediker is well known as one of the world’s leading authorities on pirates, and having read his previous book, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, I can tell you Lionsgate is not kidding when they say this project will be a “modern, bold and gritty interpretation of the genre.” Trust me, these will not be your typical Hollywood pirates!

If Lionsgate TV wants to ship us to pirate school, with Rediker navigating and La Plante at the wheel, then I am most definitely on board.

Book Jacket:

Villains of All Nations explores the ‘Golden Age’ of Atlantic piracy (1716-1726) and the infamous generation whose images underlie our modern, romanticized view of pirates.

Rediker introduces us to the dreaded black flag, the Jolly Roger; swashbuckling figures such as Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard; and the unnamed, unlimbed pirate who was likely Robert Louis Stevenson’s model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island.

This history shows from the bottom up how sailors emerged from deadly working conditions on merchant and naval ships, turned pirate, and created a starkly different reality aboard their own ships, electing their officers, dividing their booty equitably, and maintaining a multinational social order. The real lives of this motley crew-which included cross-dressing women, people of color, and the’outcasts of all nations’-are far more compelling than contemporary myth.

You can read an excerpt here.