Odyssey Marine Exploration, known worldwide for its deep-ocean shipwreck exploration, announced Tuesday that it has signed a deal with an Emmy-winning documentary company for a series that would debut in 2009.
Film crews from JWM Productions are aboard two of Odyssey's exploration vessels in the Atlantic Ocean, company spokeswoman Laura Barton said.
Greg Stemm, Odyssey's chief executive officer, said the company's efforts to find and salvage shipwrecks should make for exciting television.
"We have the most experienced team of shipwreck explorers in the world manning our ships, and on a regular basis they make amazing discoveries in the deep ocean - things that have never before been seen by human eyes," he said.
Barton said the film crews will be following Odyssey during the summerlong 2008 Atlas Search, which involves five potentially "high value" targets (sunken ships) within a 5,000-mile area.
Barton declined to disclose what the targets are. She said that while conducting the searches, the crews often discover other sunken ships that have interesting histories, if not treasure.
The series also will look at how the Odyssey crew uses state-of-the-art technology, as well as the company's legal battles over salvage rights.
In 2007, Odyssey announced the deep-ocean recovery of more than 500,000 silver and gold coins, weighing 17 tons, from a Colonial-era site code-named Black Swan.