Joe Hill’s comic book series Locke & Key is once again being eyed as a TV series. IDW Entertainment, whose publishing arm is behind the books, is developing the property as a television series with Hill attached to write the pilot and executive produce. The project is being developed internally with Circle of Confusion (The Walking Dead) before it will be taken out, likely to cable/digital networks.

Locke & Key was originally developed as a TV series by Fox during the 2010-11 season by DreamWorks TV, Alex Kurtzman & Bob Orci’s company, with Josh Friedman writing the adaptation. The 20th TV-produced project went to pilot starring Mark Pellegrino, Miranda Otto, Jesse McCartney, Sarah Bolger, Skylar Gaertner and Nick Stahl. The pilot didn’t go to series but screened at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con. At the 2014 Comic-Con, a feature trilogy with Kurtzman and Orci was announced through Universal Pictures.

“I love this story,” said Hill. “The seven years I spent working on Locke & Key was the happiest creative experience of my life and there still isn’t a day when I don’t think about those characters and miss visiting with them. The six books of the series are very like six seasons of a cable TV series and so it feels only natural to bring that world to the little screen and to see if we can’t scare the pants off viewers everywhere.”

Locke & Key tells the story of Nina Locke and her three children, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, who survive an unspeakable horror and attempt to rebuild their lives at Keyhouse, their family home in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. It is a mysterious New England mansion, with fantastic and transformative keys hidden inside its walls that are also being sought by a hate-filled and relentless creature with ties to the Locke family’s past who will stop at nothing to accomplish his sinister goals. The series has been adapted in dozens of languages, and has sold more than a million copies worldwide.

IDW Entertainment will maintain worldwide rights. IDWE’s Ted Adams and David Ozer will executive produce, along with David Alpert and Rick Jacobs from Circle of Confusion (The Walking Dead).

Hill is repped by Sean Daily at Hotchkiss and Associates.