It’s a big stretch to take the small tidbits of information from the Deadline website and turn that into a full fledged claim that MTV is interested in producing the Locke & Key television series, but the Intardwebz is all hot over this, so why not go along with the crowd, offering our own information? According to the article, a DVD screener of the pilot was sent to MTV programming chief David Janollari, who apparently liked it. And who wouldn’t have you seen the trailer? It’s awesome!
Other than the DVD screener that was sent from Fox to Janollari, there has been no other movement, and I doubt anything will happen.
First, all of the actors have been released from their contracts, and if they are good actors, they’ve probably already been picked up for other projects. Second, MTV doesn’t have the budget to do a big production like the one those at the San Diego Comic Con saw this past summer. I have my own contact close to this project, and I was told there has been no movement on the show in this current form.
So what other options does Locke & Key have? MTV is owned by Viacom, which does have fairly deep pockets, and owns a number of other cable and film companies. It does have a couple of partnerships still with CBS and NBC Universal, so there may be other outlets besides MTV, and quite frankly, I don’t see The Jersey Shore crowd sitting down and focusing long enough to take in this series. There are also Internet options if anyone is willing to bite, but again, the production cost will more than likely prohibit the show “in this current form” from seeing air.
Of course that doesn’t mean we won’t see a watered down, all new cast version of this show appear somewhere, including MTV, but it seems the magic may have been captured in the initial pilot, which would be hard to snag again.
I do believe more people will get to see the pilot soon, but it won’t be in a national broadcast.
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I was lucky enough to have been able to get into one of the screenings of the pilot in San Diego and it was fantastic. You’d be amazed at how much material they covered in the episode though. I think that there would be a lot of “key of the week” episodes. I hope somehow this series finds the light of day.
That’s actually not a bad development. I checked out MTV’s “Teen Wolf” over the summer – it was actually an incredibly good show. Maybe MTV will use “Locke & Key” as a means of establishing a supernatural TV block.
Well, there is, actually, one premium cable channel that is ACTUALLY owned by Viacom–Epix. Only issue is that Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner have all gone on record as saying that they won’t carry the network. Why? Netflix, of course. Epix signed a contract with the online rental service saying that any movie that airs on Epix will be available on Netflix 90 days later.
This is a problem if Epix is airing premium feature films–particularly as Comcast is trying to compete with Netflix in its new Xfinity format.
I love this trailer, but Viacom sold itself out of the quality scripted TV business awhile ago when it dumped Paramount TV.