Netflix will redevelop and recast Joe Hill’s Locke and Key

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

After watching the pilot episode directed by IT's Andy Muschietti, Hulu decided not to move forward with a series based on Joe Hill's IDW comic book series Locke & Key. A couple days ago, we heard that Netflix might be interested in picking the show up, and while negotiations are still underway some further details on the deal they're working on have come to light.

Netflix will be giving Locke & Key a straight-to-series order and Lost / Bates Motel's Carlton Cuse will be staying on as showrunner. The streaming service won't be keeping Muschietti's pilot as the start of the series, though. That pilot is being scrapped and Netflix wants Cuse and Hill to redevelop the series for them.

Locke & Key tells the story of 

three siblings who, after the gruesome murder of their father, move to their ancestral home in Maine. They soon discover the house has magical keys that give the bearers a vast array of powers and abilities. Little do they know (but they soon will) that a devious demon also wants the keys.

Muschietti is now busy working on IT: CHAPTER 2, so he won't be able to direct the new pilot, although he will still have an executive producer credit on the show. 

The project will also be at least partially recast – while some reports specifically mention that the roles of the two older Locke children, who had been played by Jack Mulhern and Megan Charpentier in Muschietti's pilot, will be recast, other reports say the show will be recast entirely.

The pilot's cast also included Jackson Robert Scott, Frances O'Connor, Nate Corddry, Owen Teague, Samantha Mathis, and Danny Glover.

Six or seven scripts had already been written for Locke & Key's first season if the show had happened at Hulu. It's not clear if any of those will be surviving the redevelopment at Netflix.

It's surprising that Netflix is throwing out the pilot that was already shot, but this is still a lucky break for Locke & Key after it has spent years in development hell and received multiple rejections.