Some times it is hard to find the right “key” for the right “lock(e)”, and none have been harder to find than the one that will finally open a screen-adaptation of Joe Hill’s critically acclaimed horror comic Locke and Key.
Muscheietti, who is the director of the highly-anticipated It feature film and the family ghost story Mama, will direct the pilot episode for Hulu
Fans of the supernatural horror thriller NOS4A2 may soon see the pages of the popular novel come to life on the small screen. According to Deadline, AMC has opened writers’ rooms for three projects being earmarked for straight-to-series orders and the book by Joe Hill is reportedly one of them. Fear the Walking Dead‘s Jami O’Brien has been tapped to executive produce the series, who will also employ Hill in the same capacity. Though no further details have been provided, this is a positive sign for those awaiting an adaptation of the 2013 best-seller.
Deadline is reporting that Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez’s comic book Locke and Key is about to get a one hour pilot episode from Hulu to be directed by Dr. Strange’s Scott Derrickson.
Also involved in the project is the producer of Bates Motel and The Strain Carlton Cuse, who “…developed Locke & Key with Hill who wrote the script on spec. The finished script was sent to one director, Derrickson, who came on board right away and, if the pilot goes to series, is expected to stay with the show for the first season and direct multiple episodes before segueing to the Doctor Strange sequel.” Cuse will also serve as showrunner if the pilot turns into a series.
The Hollywood Reporter just confirmed that Joe Hill’s horror novela “Snapshot 1988” has been acquired by Universal Pictures. If the story doesn’t sound familiar to Joe Hill fans, it is because the story has not been released yet. “Snapshot 1988” is one of four stories that will be published as a collection in the Spring of 2018.
Why did this story generate so much buzz in Hollywood? The Hollywood Reporter speculates that it is based on “the Stranger Things ripple effect”. It is certainly unusual for an unpublished property to be fast-tracked in this way, and it may have to do with the subject matter. The story focuses on ” … a 13-year old boy who ends up taking care of his elderly former housekeeper whom he thinks is succumbing to dementia. What he doesn’t know is that her memories are not being lost but stolen by an evil man named The Phoenician who uses a camera that steals memories.”
Joe Hill’s comic book series Locke & Key had a TV pilot in 2010-11 that didn’t take off, and is again being developed into a TV series. IDW Entertainment, which published the comic books, is developing the series. Hill will write the pilot and executive produce. Circle of Confusion (The Walking Dead) is developing it internally with IDW, after which it will be taken to cable/digital networks.
Hill said, “I love this story.The seven years I spent working on Locke & Key was the happiest creative experience of my life and there still isn’t a day when I don’t think about those characters and miss visiting with them. The six books of the series are very like six seasons of a cable TV series and so it feels only natural to bring that world to the little screen and to see if we can’t scare the pants off viewers everywhere.”