Will MTV Throw A Lifeline To Mark Romanek’s ‘Locke & Key’?

Could there be new life for the canceled and nearly forgotten graphic-novel-turned-TV-series “Locke & Key,” which boasted a pilot episode directed by Mark Romanek? The answer is a resounding ‘maybe’.

Long story short, the show was first set up at Fox but was canceled before the pilot even got a chance to air, as the network perceived the series to be prohibitively costly. Before pulling the plug, they tried shopping it at other networks to no avail (though SyFy apparently showed interest). However, it seems the decision to show the full pilot episode at Comic-Con this past July may be paying off. Deadline reports that MTV programming chief David Janollari has given the show a spin in his DVD player and likes what he sees, but hasn’t yet talked to producers. So yeah, this is all pretty thin and speculative, but hope for the show is still there.

Based on the graphic novels and scripted by Josh Friedman (”War Of The Worlds,” “The Black Dahlia”), the story kicks off when the Lockes move into a mansion called the Keyhouse, after the father of the family passes away. It turns out the doors of the massive house each lead to a different place in this world (or another). So why on earth is MTV, whose scripted shows skew pretty much entirely toward teen soaps, potentially interested? Well, they have found a new hit in “Teen Wolf,” and we’d guess they’re looking to pad out their slate of supernatural shows to try and jump on the fanbase that already tunes in to rival networks for programs like “Game Of Thrones” and “True Blood” (and yes, that is a broad comparison, but you get the idea).

Anyway, we can’t remember the last canceled show that generated this much talk without a single episode airing, so we’ll see if all this chatter leads to anything concrete. Until then, you can get a taste by watching the trailer right here.