He swam the Atlantic and the Caribbean sea’s in his ship Queen Anne’s Revenge and was ruthless in his robberies but also negligent and over-confident – believing his stature would intimate his victims into surrendering. And it’s true it often would – his men would often not need to battle anyone, his fierce in your face presence was enough for many to surrender.

He was Blackbeard, a name now of seafaring legend. He was a real Pirate of the Caribbean and Dreamworks have just agreed a deal to make a movie of his life say Variety.

The project will be written by David Franzoni (Amistad, Gladiator) and is being produced by the same guy who turned out Enchanted – and also former Philadelphia 76ers prexy/co-owner Pat Croce, who wrote “Pirate Soul,” a book that chronicled the golden era of piracy, which spanned 1690-1730. Croce is a pirate nut, even owning his own historical museum on the era.

For his legendary name, there hasn’t actually ever been a big budget movie made on Blackbeard or any serious movie of note for over fifty years. There’s been some comedies and in 2006, the BBC ran a four hour long mini-series which I can’t say I enjoyed much but outside of that, not a lot really.

Franzoni is a good writer but we shouldn’t forget what he did with the much romanticised tale of King Arthur with that horrible 2004 adaptation. Are we in for the same here… or will this be a romantic look back at Piracy like he wrote with Gladiator?

A ruthless, dirty and unforgiving pirate yarn might be a good counter-measure to the POTC series, wouldn’t ya say?