Locke & Key's transition from page to screen has been quite the journey.
A 12-year journey in fact.
It's no wonder then that showrunner Carlton Cuse described it as a "long odyssey" to us
back when season one first arrived on Netflix.
But here we finally are at the end of that journey with the release of season three,
Locke and Key's final chapter.
Or is it?
In April 2022, Netflix announced that the third season of this show would be its last,
but as fans of the wider franchise know, there's still so much potential to unlock here.
With that in mind, join us as we take a closer look at the cancellation and what the future
could hold for Locke & Key on screen beyond that.
Why Locke & Key was cancelled?
According to the report, the success of Locke & Key's first season inspired Netflix to start
planning both a second and third season immediately after.
Thankfully, this also seemed to align with the overall vision that co-showrunners Carlton
Cuse and Meredith Averill had for the show anyway, which means that this story actually
ended naturally on its own terms.
A rare thing, indeed.
Especially on Netflix.
However, the streamer didn't actually reveal any of this until they shared a sneak peek
of the "third and final season" via social media on April 6, 2022.
That day, Cuse and Averill also shared their own statement about the show coming to an
end, writing:
"Once we began working on the series, we felt three seasons was the ideal length to bring
the story of the Locke family and their Keyhouse adventures to a satisfying conclusion.
"As storytellers, we are grateful that we had the opportunity to tell our version of
Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's incredible story exactly the way we wanted.
We're keeping the magical keys, though, for our own personal use."
At a time when more and more Netflix shows are being cancelled prematurely First Kill
— it's extremely gratifying for Locke & Key fans to see that this particular story had
space to end the way it was always supposed to.
However, it is worth pointing out that back in November 2021, Cuse and Averill did mention
possible plans to continue Locke & Key for a fourth season, and perhaps even beyond that.
In response to questions around season four, Averill told GWW:
"I think that’s a question for Netflix.
We’d love to do many, many seasons of the show.
We love the show.
The show has many stories left to tell, so I think that’s really a question for them."
Now, this seems to contradict Deadline's report around the cancellation that was published
six months later.
Did the Locke & Key showrunners have a change of heart during that time or were they just
struggling to answer this question given possible issues around secrecy?
Without our own magic keys to guide us, it looks like we'll probably never know.
Will there be a Locke & Key spinoff or movie?
Given how long that first journey from page to screen took, a Locke & Key movie does seem
unlikely right now.
Season four also feels like a distant dream when you consider how the story ends in season
three's final episode.
However, there's plenty of source material to draw from if plans to continue or even
reboot the story onscreen come to fruition.
And then of course there's The Sandman to consider as well.
In 2021, IDW Publishing teamed up with DC to craft a crossover between these two properties
titled Locke & Key/Sandman: Hell and Gone.
Crafted by Locke & Key writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez (with Neil Gaiman's
blessing), Hell and Gone connected one of the Locke ancestors with Roderick Burgess,
the man who held Morpheus prisoner for most of the 20th century.
While a full-blown crossover onscreen might not be possible, season one of The Sandman
included a surprising number of links to the wider DC universe, so it wouldn't be much
of a stretch to sneak some Locke & Key Easter eggs in too somehow.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly about the original crossover, Rodriguez joked
that his and Hill's season two cameo should be expanded into its own series as well:
"One of the things that the TV creators did, especially in the season finale, was find
their own way to do the same things we did in the comic, but in a completely different
form.
In addition to giving it a new life, it gives the people that read the comic new surprises.
The other thing it did was introduce the two hottest paramedics ever seen on screen.
People are crying out loud for them to get their own spin-off series!"
That's not going to happen any time soon, but when it comes to Locke & Key's wider future
on screen, never say never to a different kind of spinoff or movie reboot.
As IDW editor Chris Ryall once pointed out (via Bleeding Cool): "It's impressive how
Joe and Gabriel keep finding new ways to expand the scope and breadth of Locke & Key."
So as the franchise continues to expand, we reckon it's only a matter of time before Locke
& Key returns to us in a brand new incarnation.