Horns author Joe Hill has been through the wringer when it comes to attempted adaptations of his comic book series Locke & Key. Now he's decided to take matters into his own hands and oversee a new TV version.
Locke & Key, which debuted via IDW Publishing in 2008 written by Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez, is a complex, sprawling tale that has a history going back to the American Revolution. But the focus is on Nina Locke and her children Tyler, Kinsey and Bode, who are trying to start a new life after surviving an unspeakable horror. Trying to rebuild, they move to the family home known as Keyhouse in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. There, they discover magical keys that can open portals that are also being sought by a terrifying, hate-filled creature who has his own designs on the portals.
There have so far been two main attempts to bring the comic book to screens, a 2010 TV version from Alex Kurtzman, Bob Orci and writer/producer Josh Friedman that never made it past pilot stage. In 2014 at Comic-Con, a film trilogy with the producers attached was announced via Universal, but the rights lapsed. Now Hill is working with IDW Entertainment and Walking Dead producers Circle Of Confusion to develop it again for the small screen, figuring out the details before pitching it to cable and streaming services.
“I love this story,” says Hill in a statement picked up by Deadline. “The seven years I spent working on Locke & Key was the happiest creative experience of my life and there still isn’t a day when I don’t think about those characters and miss visiting with them. 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.”