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Netflix has officially picked up horror comic Locke & Key for a series

Netflix has officially picked up horror comic Locke & Key for a series

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Finally

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Image: IDW

Locke & Key is finally coming to television. In May, reports surfaced that Netflix was developing the project for a series, after Hulu opted to pass on a pilot that it had ordered. Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter (via io9), the streaming service has picked up the show for a 10-episode season.

The IDW comic series was created by horror author Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez, and revolves around the Locke family, who relocates to their ancestral home in Lovecraft, Maine, after the murder of the family’s patriarch. The three children — Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode — discover that the house is filled with numerous magical keys that impart its user with special powers, and that there are powerful dark forces trying to acquire them to unleash an evil presence on the world. The comic series ran in six big arcs from 2008 to 2013, and earned Hill an Eisner for his writing, and the British Fantasy Award for best comic or graphic novel.

THR says that Netflix’s version is a redevelopment of Hulu’s pilot. Carlton Cuse will continue to act as the showrunner and will be joined by Meredith Averill (The Good Wife), who will serve as a co-showrunner. Star Trek: Discovery writer Aron Eli Coleite has also joined the project, and will re-write the pilot episode along with Hill. The show will also be recast, and the director of the Hulu pilot, It’s Andy Muschietti, won’t return — a new director hasn’t been announced yet.

The comic series has endured a tumultuous process to get to this point

Word of the pickup is good news for Locke & Key fans, who’ve had their hopes raised and dashed numerous times. The comic series has endured a tumultuous process to get to this point. Dimension Films picked up the rights for a series in 2008, then 20th Century Fox, which filmed a pilot episode in 2011, but passed on it. The project was then picked up as a film series from Universal, and last year, Hulu ordered a pilot for a series, but passed earlier this year. Netflix is the latest studio to acquire the project, but it’s done what its predecessors haven’t: actually pick it up for a series. The project will join Netflix’s growing catalog of original content, which has included other adaptations of speculative fiction works, such as Altered Carbon as well as Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Universe comic series.