Rumor: Locke & Key Might Get A Second Chance On MTV

Okay, now this is just getting cruel.

I tried not to get my hopes up when I heard that they were turning Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's amazing comic series Locke & Key into a TV show. I fought to restrain my expectations when Mark Romanek signed on to direct the pilot. I stifled my excitement when they cast Miranda Otto. So, when it finally came about that Fox decided to pass on taking Locke & Key to series, I was disappointed, but not heartbroken.

Then that damn trailer had to show up online. That stunning, beautiful, haunting, damn trailer.

And now the universe is toying with me yet again, tossing out a crumb of hope that, let's face it, will probably amount to nothing. But nevertheless, here's the skinny: after Fox decided Locke & Key wasn't for them, the companies involved shopped the show around to various other networks, including Syfy, but no one bit. But then they screened the pilot episode at Comic-Con, generating a fair amount of positive buzz. That buzz was only strengthened when the trailer above hit the interwebs and went viral. Now Deadline has heard that a DVD of the Locke & Key pilot found its way to MTV programming chief David Janollari, who apparently liked it.

Unfortunately, that's as far as things have gone at this point. MTV hasn't met with the show's producers. Nothing is official. There's just one impressed MTV exec and the glimmer of hope that generates...just enough to twist the knife. Let's face it: Locke & Key would be a pricy production when it comes to MTV standards, and it doesn't exactly fit within their wheelhouse. This will probably just wind up as a rumor that goes nowhere. But...just maybe...

For those unfamiliar with the comic, Locke & Key was the creation of Joe "Stephen King's son" Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez. The story follows the three Locke children who move with their mother into the mysterious mansion known as Keyhouse after the murder of their father. Keyhouse holds many secrets, both to their family's past and to deeper mysteries, and the children soon begin discovering keys, each of which possesses a different power. The first issue of Locke & Key is still one of the most solid and addicting debut issues I've ever read, and the series that followed has continued to live up to that standard. It would have made one hell of a show.

And just to make things worse, here's that amazing trailer again. Damn it.