Locke & Key adaptation to be written by a guy who isn’t secretly the son of someone famous

Critically acclaimed comic book series Locke & Key has had a surprisingly difficult time making the leap to anything other than a comic book, but it’s usually a good sign that a project is actually going to really happen once a writer is brought on board. OK, it could easily still fall apart like every other attempt at a Locke & Key adaptation, but let’s not think about that.

As revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, Universal has hired Henry Poole Is Here writer Albert Torres to put together a screenplay for its movie version of Locke & Key. Torres doesn’t have too many credits on his IMDB page, but THR says he worked on a draft of the ill-conceived Akira remake that Hollywood seems to think people want for some reason. Thankfully, though, Locke & Key already takes place in America, so there’ll be no reason to inexplicably change its setting or any of the other horrible things that people keep trying to do to Akira.

The Locke & Key comics are about a group of siblings who move into their family’s spooky mansion after their father is killed. The house turns out to be involved in a demonic plot to collect a bunch of magic keys that each have a different easily-abusable power, which the kids have to try and stop. The comics are written by Joe Hill, also known as Joseph King, the son of famous horror novelist Richard Bachman. As far as we know, Torres isn’t secretly the son of anyone as famous, but it could just be a secret if he is.