New Trailers for DA VINCI’S DEMONS and Season 2 of MAGIC CITY, Plus STARZ Announces the Start of Production on BLACK SAILS

STARZ handed out a few announcements today for the following shows:

• The premiere of Da Vinci’s Demons will be Friday, April 12, 2013 at 9pm ET/PT.  The network also released a new trailer for the series from David S. Goyer (co-writer of The Dark Knight Trilogy) starring Tom Riley (Monroe).
• The second season of Magic City, featuring the addition of James Caan (The Godfather), can also be previewed in a new trailer.
• The new series Black Sails, produced by Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes with Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones) set to direct the first episode, has officially begun production in Cape Town, South Africa.

Hit the jump to watch the trailers for Da Vinci’s Demons and Magic City, along with the press release for Black Sails.

Here’s the new trailer for Da Vinci’s Demons:

The press release for Da Vinci’s Demons:

Pasadena, CA – January 5, 2013 –Starz announced today that the historical fantasy “Da Vinci’s Demons,” an original series created by David S. Goyer, co-writer of The Dark Knight Trilogy, will premiere on STARZ in the U.S. on Friday, April 12 at 10 pm, following the finale of “Spartacus: War of the Damned.”  After the premiere on April 12^th, the series will air Friday nights at 9pm et/pt. The eight-episode drama, produced by Adjacent Productions, follows the ‘untold’ story of the world’s greatest genius, Leonardo da Vinci, during his turbulent youth in Renaissance Florence.  BBC Worldwide is distributing the series internationally and Fox International Channels (FIC) has acquired the series across FIC’s portfolio of 200 pay-TV entertainment channels. FIC will be premiering the show to audiences in 120 countries in Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa in the month of April.

Brilliant and passionate, the 25-year- old Leonardo da Vinci is an artist, inventor, swordsman, lover, dreamer and idealist. As a free thinker, with intellect and talents that are almost superhuman, he struggles to live within the confines of his own reality and time. He begins to not only see the future, but invent it.

“Da Vinci’s Demons” will star Tom Riley, who has received wide critical acclaim in the UK for his performances in theater, film and on television and was nominated by the Drama Desk Awards for his performance in the 2011 Tony® Award nominated Broadway play, “Arcadia.”  Riley’s co-stars include Laura Haddock (The Inbetweeners Movie, “Honest,” Captain America: The First Avenger) who plays the celebrated beauty with obscure motives, Lucrezia Donati; Elliot Cowan (“Marchlands,” “The Fixer,” “Lost in Austen”) who plays the shrewd de factor ruler of Florence, Lorenzo Medici; Lara Pulver (“True Blood,” “Sherlock,” “Robin Hood”), who plays his wife Clarice Orsini; and Blake Ritson (Serena, “Upstairs Downstairs”) plays the ruthless and unwavering Count Girolamo Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV.

Goyer, who wrote the series, served as showrunner and directed the first two episodes, is also screenwriter of the highly anticipated Man of Steel premiering June 2013 and served as script consultant and story developer for “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” and “Black Ops II”, the most successful video game franchise of all time. Julie Gardner is Executive Producer, along with Jane Tranter, head of Adjacent Productions. The series was shot in Swansea this summer.  The series is produced by Adjacent Productions, a label launched in 2012 that sits within BBC Worldwide Productions and serves to identify new formats created and produced under the company’s umbrella.

Here’s the second season trailer for Magic City:

Here’s the press release announcing the start of production on Black Sails:

STARZ ENTERTAINMENT AND MICHAEL BAY START PRODUCTION ON “BLACK SAILS”

Luke Arnold and Zach McGowan to Star Alongside Toby Stephens and Hannah New in Pirate Adventure Series; Neil Marshall Set to Direct First Episode

Pasadena, Calif., January 5, 2013 – Starz Entertainment announced today that production has begun in Cape Town, South Africa on the new original series “Black Sails” from executive producer Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes with Neil Marshall (The Descent, “Game of Thrones”) set to direct the first episode. The new STARZ Original series is set to air in 2014. The straight-to-series, eight-episode first season of the gritty pirate adventure centers on the tales of Captain Flint and his men, and takes place twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.”

Flint, the most brilliant and feared pirate captain of his day, takes on a fast-talking young addition to his crew who goes by the name of John Silver, who has stolen a map to a Spanish Treasure galleon that Flint is after.  Threatened with extinction on all sides, they fight against the British Royal Navy 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.

Luke Arnold (“McLeod’s Daughters,” “Rush,” Broken Hill) will star as the classic character, “John Silver,” in the years before his well-known feats.  Toby Stephens will be featured as the rival pirate captain to “Captain Charles Vane,” played by Zach McGowan (“Shameless”). Hannah New (“El Tiempo Entre Costuras,” Fuga De Cerebros 2,Maleficent) will be stepping into the role of “Eleanor Guthrie,” a beautiful and determined young woman who runs the smuggling operation on New Providence.  Jessica Parker Kennedy (“Max,” “The Secret Circle,” 50/50, In Time) has been cast in the role of “Max,” a tortured young prostitute who sees the dark side of New Providence.

“Black Sails” will be executive produced by Michael Bay (Transformers, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) and his Platinum Dunes partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form (producers on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Nightmare on Elm Street (2009)).  The series is created by showrunner and executive producer Jon

Steinberg (creator “Jericho,” “Human Target”) and co-executive producer Robert Levine (“Touch”). Neil Marshall (The Descent, “Game of Thrones”) is on board to direct the first episode.