After years of crappy memories of bad (really bad) Blackbeard films, did the world really need for 2006 to produce two reasonably good upgrades at the same exact time? That's exactly what's happened. I even wrote one of them.
Last Sunday marked the first airing of National Geographic's, Blackbeard: Terror of the Seas. There was a lot of promotional muscle behind it, including full-page ads in TV Guide. I've had friends all over the U.S. writing me asking if this is my Blackbeard that's getting all the hype. For the record, no.
Blackbeard: Terror at Sea | National Geographic Channel
I have to admit, I haven't seen but the first few minutes. It's on my TiVo waiting to be viewed but its time slot was killer, placing it against the season premiere of The Sopranos. What I saw seemed nicely mounted production-wise. It seemed to be going with the rather odd choice to be kind of a hybrid documentary/movie narrated by Blackbeard's first mate, Israel Hands. He was a real pirate and, for those of you keeping score, his name was used by Robert Louis Stevenson as a character in Treasure Island. But wait -- there's more!
That's right. Two Blackbeard movies in 2006. The other film was written by yours truly, produced in Thailand last September, and due to air on the Hallmark Channel, probably in June. Our version is a four-hour (two-night) mini-series that is not as historically accurate as the National Geographic version but tries to tell a more complete cinematic story (at least from what I've seen of theirs so far). We have our Israel Hands, too, but of greater note, I imagine, is that this mini-series re-unites Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward for the first time since The Thorn Birds. They don't actually have any scenes together, but they are in the same movie.
Blackbeard: Hallmark Channel
If you want to know a little bit more about our production, I wrote a long post about it on this blog earlier last year. You can read it by clicking here.
Finally, here's a chance for a head-to-head Blackbeard Blog Smackdown! between James Purefoy for National Geographic and Angus Macfadyen for Hallmark Channel. Check them out.
On the left you have James Purefoy from National Geographic's production, and on the right, you have Angus Macfadyen from the Hallmark Channel's Production. Both men have distinguished themselves playing period characters before. Purefoy most recently played Marc Antony in HBO's Rome and Macfadyen was memorable as Robert the Bruce in Braveheart.
As a bizarre historical note, regular readers of News! Views! Schmooze! will note that in 2005 I wrote the NBC version of The Poseidon Adventure which aired in November and was re-made yet again by Warner Bros. as a major feature which is out in May.
Really, think about it, what are the chances that I write and get produced two separate mini-series and BOTH OF THEM are made by someone else as well in the years of their release?
Ah, well, that's Hollywood. At least mine got made. They can't take that away. (Can they?)
