The Point Radio: BLACK SAILS Does Pirates Right
After two weeks fighting “The Christmas Crud”, we are back and jumping right in with an exclusive look at the new Starz historical series, BLACK SAILS. We talk to the cast and creators about why this isn’t just “another pirate movie” and how Michael Bey is a big part of it all. Remember, BLACK SAILS premieres on January 25th on Starz. Plus more news from The CES and Stephen Moffat promises non-stop WHO in 2014.
THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
Transcript
The Point Radio Hey it's Mike Raub finally back after a couple of weeks under the weather with the Christmas crud and we jump right back in with a look at the new stars pirate drama Black Sails. Good looking ladies, historical characters and Michael Bay what more could you ask for? Plus a lot of hot news to catch up on out of CES. Let's get to The Point.
This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Black Sails is a new original cable drama that gives us a whole new look at the world of pirates. Co-created by Robert Levine and Jonathan Steinberg and produced by Michael Bay, I talked to Jonathan about how the whole project got started. You know I always kind of wanted to make a pirate movie and I think where it started to really take
shape was the more research that Robert and I did into the history of it and not just their history the pirates history but the history of what was going on at that time. It's fascinating and it's so much more textured than the other iterations that I had seen of this world. I think it just became clear very quickly that it wanted to be a show. It wanted to be a show on premium cable where you could do both the big action and the fun of it but at the
same time you could get into the complexity of it morally, politically and I think once we realized that and then once we found stars and found a home for it in a place where they were just as committed to realizing that version of this world as we are it just took off at that point. So is it hard setting a balance keeping the show authentic and also creating the type of cable action show that audiences today expect? I think it's always hard to tell a good story.
Especially the more the bigger the canvas you're painting on and so for Robert and I, just doing that is already a mountain to climb. I think in terms of making it something that everybody could get their hands wrapped around as an audience, it is. It's a world that everybody has some attachment to. Treasure Island is a book that everybody reads when they're a kid and that has some emotional involvement in it. So we wanted to be able to do
justice to that. We wanted to be able to be aware of that but at the same time we wanted to be able to really be aggressive in terms of showing people that you think you know this world, you probably don't. It's just never really been portrayed before. It's so much fun and it's so engrossing that it's led to a lot of versions that are really either stylized or sanitized or in a lot of cases made cartoons of. This is not that. This is a story about people who
are living a very hard life under very difficult circumstances and trying to make it work. And I think that's something that I didn't really see before. The thrill of the authenticity spreads to even in front of the camera as actor Mark Ryan explains. This is not just another show about pirates. It's the show about pirates. There's never been a show made like this with the depth of research and the reality dealing with the actual lives of the golden age of the sort of
pirates. And that makes it to me obviously it's unique and knowing a little bit about the history when we started talking about it. I thought it's about John about it. I was excited about it. This subject was going to be given this kind of historical treatment as opposed to it being a cartoony jokey sort of pirates that we all kind of grew up with. You know this is this is really about ocean going. Thieves and robbers and vagabonds who were struggling against the British Navy at
the time. It's start a new culture new way of life. And so the show is very very character driven. It's all about the relationships. Yes it's got sex and violence in it because that's part of life as well. It is not a Disney Pirates of the Caribbean at all. And I think that's what makes the show compelling. It's well cast. The cast is first class. Some of the best people I've ever worked with including Toby Stevens. We do some big scenes together Toby and I. But all the cast is
is first class. As you heard part of that cast includes Toby Stevens who plays. Okay I played Captain Flint. He's the captain of the wars. He's historically been at the beginning of the series. You get a sense that he's been the biggest owner on the island of Nersaal in terms of pirates. He's the most feared pirate out there. But he's been over the last few months he's been having he's been having a fallow period and his crew is becoming slightly discontented. And there's an
element on the crew that want to vote him off because what we found out about piracy is that they used to vote on and off that happens. So they want to take a vote and vote him out. So he's trying to cling on to his captaincy. If Toby's carrying your name sounds a little familiar it's probably not the only one you'll recognize on the show. You know we have some of the characters you know Captain Flint and John Silver and Billy Bones are our characters that are that were
adapted out of Treasure Island. You know they're characters that we hope will hopefully after a long and healthy life for the show link back up to that book. We are following historical characters in Charles Vane and Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny and Benjamin Hornigold that we've you know we've adapted to make sense in the world that we're creating. And I think that we feel some license to be able to be free with in the sense that the historical even the historical record about these
people is sketchy at best. And so I think we felt like what we wanted to understand about them was what would they have done not what is you know what story was put out about. So we're following them and then we're still we're following some characters that we've made up Eleanor Guthrie and her father and Max. And you know it's really hopefully a very broad spectrum of this world that we get to delve into and explore. One of those original characters is Eleanor Guthrie played
by Hannah New. Wow, Eleanor Guthrie is an incredibly strong and determined young woman. Her role basically is what they call the fence so she takes in pirate goods and sells it back to merchant ships which positions her as probably the strongest economic power on the island. And for that reason she's very influential in what crews get her backing and support and what they can go hunting for. So in that way she kind of is a political figure in the town
and everyone's kind of lobbying and vying for her favor. So it's an incredible character to play and I get a lot of incredible negotiation scenes and being quite a kick-ass businesswoman. It's a lot of fun. For Hannah, costumes played a big part in her role. I mean for Eleanor she's kind of quite utilitarian in what she wears. She does a bit of kind of power dressing, 80s kind of power dressing but in an 18th century kind of way. And for me that's great. I mean all
of these costumes are kind of designed, I don't wear any corsets in the show so but I do have very structured tailoring so it's all about being you know having good posture and being quite imposing and I think you know the minute you put on and one of the amazing things is lots of little details about the costume. I had a lot of opportunity with the costume department to kind of say I would like this little detail and for example she has a set of keys that she's always carrying
around with her because she would have you know had to keep all of her precious halls in certain areas and make sure that those thieving pirates don't get their hands on it. There's more on black sales coming up, see episodes on stars of course and always get more information at stars.com. Here we go there's a lot to catch up on in pop culture. Couple of final notes out of CES this year. First of all Variety used the venue to hand out their Breakthrough of the Year Awards.
That included giving a Breakthrough Actress of the Year award to Olivia Munn, Breakthrough Comedian of the Year was Amy Schumer and Breakthrough Film of the Year was the not yet released Veronica Mars film produced through Kickstarter with Kristen Bell and Rob Thomas. Also TiVo broke a record in CES this year for the Guinness World Book of Records. The most hours binge watching television is what they were going for and three men managed to watch 87 hours of straight TV on
the TiVo this year, beating the previous record which was 86 hours sent back in 2012 when some folks sat down to spend that much time watching The Simpsons non-stop. Image Comics has announced a whole ton of new projects for the new year including relationships with people like Matt Fraction, Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham, Bill Willingham, Barry Kitson, Kelly Sudakonic, Rick Remender and of course a long-term deal with Ed Brubaker. At the top of a lot of fans notice
here is the Morrison-Burnham project called Nameless. It's a six-issue series with a post-modern protagonist who's a bit like Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. For a full list of all the projects you can check them out at imagecomics.com. With Marvel taking the reins on the Star Wars comics next year there's a lot of talk on whether or not these comics will now become in line with the new films or continue to create their own continuity.
Some recent tweets by Lucasfilm really added no answer to the question. In fact simply saying that as far as Lucasfilm's story group is concerned they will have a hand in all facets of Star Wars storytelling including movies, TV, games and publishing. A lot of electronic news out of the CES show in Las Vegas but some TV changes as well. The WWE is launching their WWE Network with 24-7 original programming, classic matches, all pay-per-views and about
1500 hours of a video on demand library. It'll be on Monday, February 24th on a number of different streams including Roku and Xbox 360 and for an unprecedented consumer cost of just under $10 a month. Meanwhile A&E has added Roku devices to their app offerings meaning you can get TV everywhere on the Roku device and pick up full television episodes, movies and a lot more from the A&E history and lifetime networks. The TV Everywhere app is also available on the iOS,
Android, Kindle Fire and Xbox 360. Well now that it's all said and done it looks like comic and graphic novel sales in comic stores rose about 9% in 2013. Comics were up a little bit higher than graphic novels at about 10 plus percent. Graphic novels not quite as strong they rose about six and a half percent over 2012. Continuing with a five-year trend both Marvel and DC lost some shares in the year. An image comic became the best seller of all with the number one comic and
graphic novel for 2013 both Walking Dead Properties. We'll check the entire sales for December in comic stores coming up in a bit. Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has promised fans that from now on there'll be unbroken runs at the BBC series. He said the upcoming series 8 will not be broken up that'll run in one continuous block of episodes and the same will happen for series 9 coming up in a couple of years. He didn't say there would be Christmas specials and also
left the door open for other possible specials to be added to the series as time goes on. As far as when does it all start? Well Peter Capaldi as the new doctor begins in series 8 according to Moffat sometime later this summer. Let the pirating begin. HBO has announced that Game of Thrones season 4 will premiere on their network on Sunday April the 6th at the usual time 9 o'clock eastern. The series is distinct for a number of reasons not the least of which is the fact that it's the most pirated show
of any television program both in the US and around the world. Seems like we say it every year but there's nothing that wiles away the mid-winter blues like a little trip to the comic store every Wednesday. This week some good things waiting for you as always starting with the new Skyman series finally in its own run from Dark Horse. First issue out this week the gothtopia storyline begins in Batgirl 27 from DC and also from DC.
A collection of the weird little creature commandos series done by Robert Kaniger and then updated later on by J.M. DiMatteus. It's trade paperback at a bargain price just under 20 bucks. Injustice begins the second year for the gamers and comic fans who are both and there's a new first issue of that run out this week from DC as well. IDW finally gets the first issue for Black Dynamite direct from television that starts this week and there's a beautiful complete collection
of Doug Wildey's Rio. Again a bargain price trade paperback for just under 30 bucks. X-Files has a spin-off this week. X-Files conspiracy number one starts and you'll find another interesting twist on the superhero mythos in Ego's number one this week from Image. Ever hear about that Disneyland project that never was? It was called the Museum of the Weird and now those designs have been brought into a comic called Disney Kingdom's Seeker of the Weird. First issue out this week
from Marvel just like the first issue of Miracle Man we've been waiting on and also this week from the indie side a second printing of Dayman number two. All these and more waiting at a comic shop near you you can certainly get that for the comic book locator service 1-888 comic book or with a great website called findacomicshop.com or on the front page of our website ComicMix.com. DC starts out the year holding down six pots in the top 10 best-selling comics at comic stores in December
but Marvel still manages to pull off the number one best seller during the month. Here's your top 10 best-selling books in comic stores in December and it starts at number 10 with Superior Spider-Man 23 for Marvel number nine in humanity number one also from Marvel. Justice League 26 at number eight number seven Harley Quinn number one from DC at number six. Justice League number 25 Superman Unchained number five comes in at number five. At number four for Ever Evil number four. Bad Man
26 is at number three for the month. Second best-selling comic for the month in stores is Avengers number 24 and at number one. Origin 2 number one from Marvel. That's a wrap for right now but a little more vitamin C and we're back in a few days with more on black sales and we jump into the creepy with a look at the new sci-fi series Bitten. The podcast is heard twice every week now on great websites like ComicMix.com and michaeldavisworld.com and on the iTunes podcast directory where you can
subscribe but you can also listen to pop culture 24-7 at getthepointradio.com. On your desktop or your laptop or take us anywhere on an Apple or Android mobile device with a free app called iNet Radio. On social media we're under the point radio on Facebook and on Twitter and we're going to be right back here in a few days. Get the point radio dot com!
