FOX declined to give a series pickup to the TV adaptation of Joe Hill’s Locke & Key comic book series. The adaptation, which was written and produced by Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Josh Friedman, would have starred Miranda Otto, Nick Stahl, and Jesse McCartney. A pilot was shot and it screened at Comic-Con to a very positive crowd. Although it deviated from the source material a little, especially in character appearances, most deviations seemed to have been for the better, unlike the Wonder Woman pilot where things inevitably were just worse.
The pilot unlocked (pun intended) a sense of wonder for the audience, but it may have been too deep and possibly too depressing for a weekly FOX TV audience. On cable, with a shorter season, a show like this may have thrived.
The “sizzle reel” trailer for Locke & Key has made its way online, so if you didn’t get to see the pilot at Comic-Con, here’s an idea of what it would be like. Sadly, the sets have been dismantled and set pieces have sold off, so it’s unlikely we’ll see more. Which is a shame, because all of the makings of a good TV series were here.
I hope Locke & Key gets another chance at some point, though at the same time, I’d worry that the next try might not be as good as the first. See what you think from these clips, before they are inevitably taken offline:
