Spike to produce series chronicling U.S. Navy fighting pirates
Last Updated: Monday, April 13, 2009 | 3:30 PM ET
CBC News
A U.S. television network has announced plans for new series tracking the U.S. Navy's efforts against modern-day pirates — just a day after the end of a real-life hostage situation involving the captain of an American ship.
Producers said they have been in talks with Navy officials about the proposal for about three months. While no specific air date has yet been set, the proposed series will see two crews follow the everyday experiences of the Navy as it patrols the African coast in the coming weeks.
44 Blue Productions, the company behind the TV documentary The True Story of Black Hawk Down, prison insider program Lockup and the award-winning preschool-caregivers talk show A Place of Our Own, is set to film the new series.
The goal is to have a series ready for broadcast by September, according to Rasha Drachkovitch, president and founder of 44 Blue Productions.
Drachkovitch also said talks with the Navy were completed late last week.
"We had no idea if last week's events would actually kill the deal or seal the deal," said Sharon Levy, Spike's TV's senior vice president for original series.
On Monday, U.S. Navy officials announced the end to the standoff involving pirates holding a cargo ship captain hostage in the Indian ocean.
Navy SEAL snipers killed a trio of pirates holding Richard Phillips hostage on Sunday, after spotting one man holding an AK-47 to the ship captain's head, Vice Adm. William Gortney said in an interview with NBC's Today show.
For months, Somali pirates have been patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, boarding ships as large as a Saudi supertanker and taking foreign hostages. Warships from a host of countries, including the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and Iran, have been deployed to the region in an attempt to deter further pirate attacks.
With files from the Associated Press
