Netflix finds new actors to play Tyler and Kinsey in Locke & Key series

Last Updated on July 21, 2021

Bringing the story of Joe Hill's IDW comic book series Locke & Key to the screen in the form of a television series has proven to be a very complicated process, one that has dragged on for most of a decade. Back in 2011, Mark Romanek directed a Locke & Key pilot for Fox, then the network chose not to give a series order. The same thing recently happened again. We followed the progress of a Locke & Key pilot that director Andy Muschietti put together for Hulu, working from a script by Hill. Then Hulu passed on the project.

This time, Locke & Key was saved by Netflix, who have already given the show a 10 episode order. But bringing Locke & Key to Netflix isn't going to be as simple as making Muschietti's pilot episode 1 and continuing on from there. Netflix will not be using Muschietti's pilot at all, and have now recast two of the three leads.

The streaming service also had a creative team of Hill, Carlton Cuse, Aron Eli Coleite, and Meredith Averill redevelop the scripts that were in place. Cuse and Averill will serve as showrunners on Netflix's Locke & Key, while another director, not yet hired, will be taking the helm of a new pilot written by Hill and Coleite. Muschietti is unable to direct the new pilot himself because he's too busy with IT: CHAPTER 2.

Muschietti remains on board as an executive producer alongside his sister Barbara Muschietti, Hill, Averill, Coleite, Cuse (producing through his company Genre Arts), Lindsey Springer of Genre Arts, IDW Entertainment's Ted Adams, and David Alpert and Rick Jacobs of Circle of Confusion.

The horror/fantasy Locke & Key series 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.

Jack Mulhern and Megan Charpentier played Tyler and Kinsey in Muschietti's pilot, but in the new pilot they will be played by Connor Jessup and Emilia Jones (pictured above).

Jessup may be best known for playing the role of Ben Mason in the TNT series Falling Skies, while Jones has appeared in Ben Wheatley's HIGH-RISE and Pascal Laugier's INCIDENT IN A GHOSTLAND.

Muschietti cast Jackson Robert Scott, who played Georgie in IT, as Bode in his pilot, and Scott will remain in the role for the series.

It's not clear why Netflix chose to replace Mulhern and Charpentier, or if the any other members of the cast Muschietti assembled, which included Frances O'Connor, Danny Glover, Nate Corddry, and Owen Teague, will be making the transition to the new version of the pilot.