Steven Spielberg Failed To Bring A Beloved Netflix TV Show To Life

"Locke and Key" is one of the best comic book series of the 2000s. It's an incredible fantasy-horror work with stunning art by Gabriel Rodríguez and a compelling narrative that manages to be both whimsical and mature, with young characters that act like kids yet are not looked down upon or treated as lesser than the adults. The comics also mix a bit of Amblin in with a lot of Stephen King to tell a phenomenal story about growing up — one that's as scary as it is heartfelt, which is fitting since the comic was written by King's son Joe Hill (who also wrote the short story "The Black Phone" is based on).

With a comic as good as "Locke & Key," it was inevitable that it would be brought to the screen. Sure enough, in 2020, Netflix debuted the first season of its three-season TV adaptation. Season 1 was largely faithful to the series' source material (as was season 2), only for "Locke & Key" season 3 to tell a wholly original story with rather mixed results. The show's problems were mostly related to tone and pacing. Its characters acted nonsensically even when it wasn't warranted, while the series itself emulated "Harry Potter" in the way it played down its horror elements and sanitized both its violence and mature subject matter (so as to make the whole thing more appropriate for a YA audience). Sure, it made some great adaptation choices, and when the show deviated from the source material it would sometimes do so brilliantly, but as a whole it merely proved to be a lesser version of the original comic.

Before the Netflix version, though, there were several other attempts to adapt "Locke & Key" for the screen, including an abandoned movie trilogy that had Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci producing. There was also a pilot for a series adaptation on Hulu that featured Scott Derrickson as a producer and was directed by Andy Muschietti — which, of course, sounds rad. And then there's the famed 2011 Fox pilot that was produced by Kurtzman and Orci and even featured the legendary Steven Spielberg as a producer.

The 2011 "Locke & Key" pilot was written by Josh Friedman ("The Sarah Connor Chronicles," "Foundation") and directed by Mark Romanek ("Never Let Me Go"). It is a rather faithful adaptation of the start of the original comic, striking a good balance of spookiness and heart. The pilot doesn't actually get into the gnarlier parts of the source material, so we don't know how it would have been restricted by airing on network TV. Nevertheless, for a first impression it's a very good one.

The cast was also very impressive, with Miranda Otto playing the mom, Nina Locke, who moves her children Tyler (Jesse McCartney), Kinsey (Sarah Bolger), and Bode (Skylar Gaertner) to a New England mansion after the tragic murder of her husband Rendell (Mark Pellegrino from "Lost"). In the house (which has a name, Keyhouse), the kids find a bunch of magical keys, along with an evil spirit trapped within the grounds. The pilot also starred Nick Stahl as the Locke children's uncle, Duncan, and Ksenia Solo as the spirit Dodge.

Unfortunately, pretty much as soon as the pilot was finished, Fox announced it would not pick "Locke & Key" up for series, making it one of the many TV shows Spielberg produced that went nowhere. The pilot was only officially screened once at San Diego Comic-Con 2011, though it eventually resurfaced online a decade later. It was quickly taken down, of course, but you can still find it if you look close enough.