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With its gigantic promotional platform, Comic-Con has become the place for TV studios and networks to introduce their new genre series to fans through screenings of their pilots and panels with creators and cast. But showcasing pilots that didn’t go to series is extremely rare. It will happen this year with Fox’s Locke & Key, a suspense thriller based on the graphic novel by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. A Locke & Key session will be held July 22 at 10:30 AM and will include a screening of the pilot, followed by a panel discussion featuring Hill, Rodriguez, the pilot’s writer/executive producer Josh Friedman and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Behind the event is the publisher of the Locke & Key comic, IDW Publishing. IDW asked the pilot’s producer, 20th Century Fox TV, for permission, and with the studio’s blessing, it moved to book space for the screening. Because the convention is so packed, there was some juggling involved, so the screening will be in Room 8, and the panel next door in Room 9. “This one-time-only screening of the entire pilot will show you just what a void there will be on your TVs this fall,” IDW’s ad materials say.
Locke & Key, directed by Mark Romanek and starring Miranda Otto and Nick Stahl, was one of the highest-profile pilots this past season. It was given an early pilot order and originally envisioned as a summer series before it was switched to fall consideration. Despite its great pedigree and top auspices involved, the pilot didn’t make the cut at Fox, and, after shopping the show to cable networks, the studio, faced with mounting costs of keeping the production alive, decided to pull the plug while signing Friedman in an overall deal. With rare exceptions (the failed Aquaman pilot was made available on iTunes), all pilots that don’t go to series die a quiet death and are rarely shown to the general public. While IDW will no doubt use the the footage to drum up interest for the next chapter in the comic book series, it will be interesting to see what kind of reaction the pilot will get. Can the power of the Comic-Con crowd make network chiefs change their mind?
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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Hopefully, the screening will prove popular enough that 20th Century decides to sell the pilot online (i.e. iTunes, Amazon, Netflix). Why keep it locked away if enough people want to see it and there could be at least some money made off of it? Never understood the wasteful nature of discarded pilots, especially nowadays with the internet as a means of distributing shows.
Thank you. That’s exactly what I wanted to write. The money’s already lost, so why not try to recover some of it.
Locke & Key TV Petition: twitition.com/ed929
Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman…
We all waiting to see that pilot. We know it was bad, but we steel want to see that.
Can they show us?
Very BAD MOVE. Shows that screen at Comic Con have a bad track record. The pressure is on and the convention is now controlled by the cyber twits who have no imagination and are only looking for self-promotion. Remember The Cape and No Ordinary Family?
No one else does either.
What harm can come of this? The show is already dead anyway, it’s not going to be a series.
I hope Syfy, Starz or any other network will pick up Locke & Key. I had the chance to watch the pilot and it is really good.
Completely and totally agree!
What’s done is done. At best, this will give the Comic Con fans a momentary distraction from hating Fox for the cancellation of Firefly. I predict the fans will be capable of hating Fox for multiple reasons, simultaneously (while still thinking Fringe is one of the best thing on TV, ever. Thanks, Fox!)
Haha, comic fans will never let Fox live down the cancellation of FIREFLY.
That being said I hope the screening goes well. The script was great and I hope somehow it can find life as a series, if not now perhaps down the road.
This is the Karma begat to Circle of Confusion.
I look forward to seeing what they did with the pilot. L&K is a great story with the potential to continue on for several seasons had it been done right and picked up. I do, however, cringe at the thought of having to stand in line to try to get in to Room 8 for a 10:30am showing. Not a terribly big room and, oh, I should just head over now to get a place in line, huh?
It is hardly unprecedented. Gene Roddenberry was showing his busted pilots at conventions in the 1970s and George R.R. Martin showed his Doorways pilot at conventions in the 1990s. Sorry, Nikki, your premise is wrong. I just hope nobody thinks showing the Wonder Woman pilot is a good idea.
Disagree. This is a book from a smaller hip comic book publisher. And the pilot was rejected by the mainstream. Even if its bad, this pilot will become a cult classic.
All this screening will do is confirm why fox didn’t pick it up. The pilot was bad, bad, bad
it was laughable
Remember the Walking Dead? Lost?
The source material is destined to be a cult classic; apparently the execs deemed it too ‘smart’…says a lot about the readers then, eh?
There’s an AQUAMAN Pilot?!?!
The series may not have been picked up but the pilot is an hour of storytelling by some very good people, and there’s an audience for that.
Maybe the screening is no more than a backdoor move to try to change the course of history and maybe spark a word-of-mouth that might lead to a pickup elsewhere. But people who work their asses off to make a show deserve the chance to have it appreciated.
Read the pilot – thought it was the best of the ones I’d read. Was really looking forward to seeing what they did with it – too bad I won’t be making it to Comic-Con. Fingers crossed for an iTunes release, I guess.
People (writers esp.) LOVE this pilot so its great that they are doing this. Exec Producer Heather Kadin is one of my faves: smart, great taste..and holds out for the right talent to hire for the job…Josh Friedman was a great choice and they delivered a fantastic script. I wish I could go to this screening!
By far, one of the best pilots I’ve seen this season… was having a meeting today saying what a shame it would be that it won’t see the light of day and now they’re going to screen it at COMIC-CON. Awesome.
Romanek and Friedman did a bang up job on it. Unfortunately it wasn’t network TV.
LOVED LOCKE AND KEY!!!!!! I saw it at Comic Con I hope we can make it happen. I saw the night showing, the room was packed, it started a half hour late and I did not hear one person say “ya..I see why it was canceled” Everyone as we walked out were amazed and “wanting more” Even if it became a movie I would love it. Let’s make it happen!!! I want more.