Fox may have passed on a TV pilot based on Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's Eisner Award-winning IDW horror comic series Locke & Key back in 2011, but now it seems it could be skipping the small screen altogether. Universal Pictures has optioned L&K with feature films in mind, with Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Bobby Cohen set to produce through their K/O Paper Products banner alongside IDW CEO and Publisher Ted Adams. Universal's EVP (Executive Vice President, not electronic voice phenomenon) of Production Jon Mone and Creative Executive Jay Polidoro will reportedly oversee the project, with Ben Kim developing on the K/O side of things.

Launching with the six-issue "Welcome to Lovecraft" story arc in 2008, L&K has since gone on to span five collected volumes, with a sixth on the way following the series-concluding chapter's kickoff in August.

Written by Josh Friedman, the original L&K TV pilot was shown to a select few (including would-have-been advertisers and fans at San Diego Comic-Con 2011) before eventually leaking online for a short period of time. Like David E. Kelley's failed Wonder Woman pilot and the doomed 1994 Fantastic Four movie recently lampooned in the latest season of Arrested Development, fans may or may not be unable to throw a rock at comic conventions without hitting a bootlegged copy on DVD. The trailer for it, however, is easy to find on YouTube.

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