IDW Entertainment Adapting Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez’s Locke & Key Comic For TV

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IDW Entertainment announced today they’re bringing Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez’s Locke & Key to television. Yes. Again.

“I’m writing the pilot and having fun with it. IDW is backing it to the hilt, with plans to film not just the pilot but an entire first season,” writer Joe Hill told me. “The show will both follow the original series as well as expand upon it considerably… While also throwing in some twists to keep fans of the comic off balance. Beyond that, not a lot to say except stay tuned.”

I also reached out to Rodríguez who said he’s not sure exactly what will come of the project considering the development process for things like this but “I’m delighted that it’s in IDW Media’s own hands, as I can’t think of any company that might treat the story in a more respectful and loving way than I’m sure they will.”

I’ve been a fan and supporter of Locke & Key since the very beginning. While the comic series (which you should absolutely read!) has since wrapped up the creators have been working to adapt it to well, any screen. You may recall it got a pilot at Fox back in 2011. I actually thought they did a really great job on it but it wasn’t picked up for series (MTV was considering it for a while too).

Then in 2012 it looked like the series might be getting a three-picture movie deal with Star Trek’s Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci which was confirmed in 2013. Skip ahead to 2015, Hill told Broke Horror Fan the film series unfortunately wasn’t going through as planned but that there was still hope for television. Now it appears as if IDWE is going it alone.

As of right now there’s no word as to where the show would air but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it go to a network like AMC (which is home to comic adaptations like The Walking Dead and the upcoming Preacher), BBC America (who are currently producing Dirk Gently starring Elijah Wood), Syfy (who nabbed Wynonna Earp) or a non-traditional venue like Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu. IDWE currently have a pilot for Brooklyn Animal Control at USA. However, IDWE President David Ozer told me, “We’ll be shopping it to broadcast, cable and digital outlets, finding the right home for the series.”

Hill said in IDW’s press release, “The six books of the series are very like six seasons of a cable TV series and so it feels only natural to bring that world to the little screen and to see if we can’t scare the pants off viewers everywhere.” Ted Adams and David Ozer from IDWE, and David Alpert and Rick Jacobs from Circle of Confusion will serve as executive producers for the series along with Hill.

Locke & Key already lives on thanks to some very cool props from Skelton Crew Studio. They also make stuff for Mouse Guard, Chew, Hellboy and more and you should keep an eye out on TheNerdyBird.com soon for something having to do with all of that…

You can also check out the audio version of the series [Editor’s Note: affiliate link] available for free through Audible. If features the voice talents of Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany, Haley Joel Osment, and the amazing Kate Mulgrew.

5 Responses to “IDW Entertainment Adapting Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez’s Locke & Key Comic For TV”

  1. Tiger Millionare says:

    Pretty cool! The audioplay is also pretty good :)

  2. Zatar says:

    Oh man this is great. Locke and Key is one of my favorite comics. One thing I hope they remember is how damaged all the characters were by the series’s first event. In the trailer for the original I thought the Mother looked fast to put together, more like she was after 6 volumes of character development than were she was when the story began.

  3. Stephen "Soup" Strange says:

    Key and Peele should star.

  4. The best comic series of the past 10 years imo.

  5. YoungMacKid says:

    “The six books of the series are very like six seasons of a cable TV series and so it feels only natural to bring that world to the little screen and to see if we can’t scare the pants off viewers everywhere.” I know that Locke and Key had a lot of violence, but I hope it doesn’t translate to blood, guts, and gory, for the sake of blood, guts, and gory, on screen. I know it is listed under horror, but I always read it as an urban mystery or fantasy where the events that take place are aloud to have impact. I view it as something closer to Gravity Falls than Poltergeist.