Since its release over a decade ago, Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s comic series Locke & Key has earned considerable acclaim from readers for its characters, fantastical horror, and art style. The series went down a long road to a television adaptation before finally landing at Netflix, which just revealed when it will debut: February 7th, 2020.
The series begins when three siblings, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke return to their family’s ancestral home in Lovecraft, Maine following their father’s murder. As they begin to explore their new home, they discover that the house contains a number of magical keys, each of which impart different powers on the user: they can turn people into spirits, open doors to other places, or fix broken objects. As they continue to explore, they discover a deep-seated mystery that involves their family, their father’s death, and otherworldly horrors.
Secrets are meant to be unlocked. Locke & Key arrives February 7. pic.twitter.com/IuVc0ZJqJt
— Locke & Key (@lockekeynetflix) December 4, 2019
Netflix didn’t release a teaser or footage of the series, which stars Darby Stanchfield (Scandal) as Nina Locke, Jackson Robert Scott (IT and IT 2) as Bode Locke, Connor Jessup (American Crime) as Tyler Locke, Emilia Jones (Horrible Histories) as Kinsey Locke, Bill Heck (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) as Rendell Locke, and Laysla De Oliveira (In the Tall Grass) as Dodge.
The series has had a rocky road to television. Way back in 2014, Universal announced a film series from Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Bobby Cohen, and Ted Adams, but that project fizzled out. A couple of years later, Dimension Films acquired the rights, and produced a pilot for Fox, which starred Miranda Otto, Sarah Bolger, Skylar Gaertner, Ksenia Solo, and Nick Stahl. Fox ultimately passed on the pilot, but screened it at San Diego Comic Con in 2011. in 2015, Audible adapted the series as a full-cast audio drama.
In 2017, Hulu resurrected the project with Carlton Cuse, Scott Derrickson, and Lindsey Springer at the helm, with IT director Andy Muschietti directing the pilot. That project also died. Hill told me in October that “Hulu had corporate turnover,” and that as a result, all of the projects in development were taken off the board. The project then moved to Netflix, which “picked up the pieces, and said we love this property, we love the story, characters, and we’d love to do something with it,” according to Hill.
Now, the series will begin streaming in February. Hill explained that it’ll be an ongoing series, and that it’ll “be true to the characters in the comic, although it introduces some new characters, and it somewhat follows the storyline of the comics,” and that there will be “some curveballs thrown in” to surprise readers. Hill also noted that he and Rodriguez will be working on some new Locke & Key comics in the near future.
https://reactormag.com/2014/01/24/welcome-to-the-locke-and-key-reread/
After such a long wait, it’ll be good to finally see how well the comics translate into a different medium. Hopefully, it’ll live up to the comics and their wonderful artwork and storytelling.
