The quest to bring the story of Joe Hill's IDW comic book series Locke & Key to television continues, and it's starting from scratch for the third time after pilots have been filmed and rejected by both Fox and Hulu. Now the TV series is actually going to happen at Netflix, the streaming service has already ordered 10 episodes, but that order also came with the order to do some recasting and rewriting, requiring a new first episode to be shot.
Locke & Key is about
siblings Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode who, after the gruesome murder of their father, move to their ancestral home in Massachusetts only to find the house has magical keys that give them a vast array of powers and abilities. Little do they know, a devious demon also wants the keys, and will stop at nothing to attain them.
Andy Muschietti shot the most recent pilot, the one Hulu declined, and at least one of his cast members will be carrying over to the Netflix series: Jackson Robert Scott, who played Georgie in Muschietti's IT, is still on board to play Bode. The roles of Tyler and Kinsey have been recast, though. On the Netflix show they're going to be played by Connor Jessup and Emilia Jones.
Now a few more actors have been cast in this new iteration of Locke & Key. Griffin Gluck of American Vandal is set to be a series regular, Sherri Saum of The Fosters is taking on a "central role", and Steven Williams – the man who played bounty hunter Creighton Duke in JASON GOES TO HELL – will have a recurring role.
Gluck's character is Gabe, "a new boarding student at Matheson Academy who befriends Kinsey Locke." Saum will be playing Ellie Whedon, "a teacher at Matheson Academy who has a mysterious history with the Locke family." Williams' character also spends his time at Matheson Academy; he is Joe Ridgeway, "an esteemed teacher at Matheson Academy who connects with the newly arrived Locke family."
The presence of Williams in the cast has raised my interest in this show substantially.
The Netflix version of Locke & Key was created by Hill and developed by Carlton Cuse, Aron Eli Coleite, and Meredith Averill. Hill wrote the first episode with Coleite. Cuse and Averill are the showrunners.