Michael Bay's BLACK SAILS to Premiere 1/25 on Starz

Starz announced today that the highly anticipated new pirate drama "Black Sails" will premiere on Starz on Saturday, January 25th at 9pm ET/PT. The eight-episode first season of the authentic pirate adventure centers on the tales of Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and his men, and takes place twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic "Treasure Island."

"Black Sails" is executive produced by Michael Bay (Transformers, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) and his Platinum Dunes partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form (The Purge , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). The series was created by showrunner and executive producer Jonathan Steinberg (creator "Jericho," "Human Target") and season two executive producer Robert Levine ("Touch"). Production is set to begin on the 10-episode second season at Cape Town Studios in Cape Town, South Africa in November 2013.

Flint, the most brilliant and most feared pirate captain of his day, takes on a fast-talking young addition to his crew who goes by the name John Silver (Luke Arnold). 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.

Toby Stephens (Die Another Day) is joined by Zach McGowan ("Shameless") as rival Captain Charles Vane; Hannah New (Maleficent) as Eleanor Guthrie, a determined young woman who runs the smuggling operation on New Providence and Jessica Parker Kennedy ("The Secret Circle," 50/50, In Time) as Max, a tortured young prostitute who sees the dark side of New Providence.