While discussing the release of the second season, Locke & Key creators Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez hinted at a potential crossover with another Netflix series, The Sandman, which is an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Neil Gaiman, set to be released at a future date. Locke & Key, also based on a comic series of the same name, follows the supernatural adventures of the Locke family, and their mysterious home, Keyhouse, where a number of mysterious keys are discovered, hunted by an unknown demonic entity for its own malevolent purposes. The series premiered on Netflix in 2020, and its second season was just released on October 22.
The two properties, which have already crossed over in the comics, share fantasy and horror elements and would be a natural fit for a crossover. Unlike Locke & Key, The Sandman has struggled to reach the screen for a while, lounging in development hell since 1991, with multiple movie and TV projects failing to get off the ground. That's fated to change though, as one season of a Sandman series was ordered by Netflix in June 2019. The series wrapped filming in August 2021 with a currently unknown release date.
The Locke & Key creators discussed a potential crossover with CBR, and also talked about Netflix's influence of comic-based stories, Netflix's commitment to producing horror stories, and Locke & Key's recent season three renewal. When asked about the crossover, Hill and Rodriguez indicated ambivalence for the crossover to happen, citing that it was Netflix who would ultimately make the decision. Read Hill's quote below:
"You never say never but, as a Sandman fan, my feeling is that I want to see Neil Gaiman's Sandman stories. That's what everyone wants, so my instinct is no. The two have had this nice moment where they got to hold hands in the comic books...We had so much fun with it and, if DC and Neil certainly seem willing, it's always possible that there might be another Locke & Key story in the comics that explores some of the outer corners of the Sandman Universe. Specifically, I would like to do another story, if for any other reason, to explain why the two universes overlapped in the 1920s but don't by the time we get to Kinsey, Tyler, and Bode because Kinsey, Tyler, and Bode do not exist in a universe with Batman and Superman. But it is clear that Roderick Burgess is in a universe with Superman and Batman. There's a story in my head that explains why those two universes split apart and we need to do another Mary Locke story to tell that.
With the long-term development problems of The Sandman, it's understandable that Hill and Rodriguez would want the new series to make a name for itself first before any crossover would happen. Hill also talked about not wanting to share a universe with DC, who owns the publishing rights to The Sandman, citing that his characters don't exist in a universe with Batman and Superman. Even though a crossover isn't happening immediately, the seed has clearly been planted in the creators' minds, and only time will tell if that seed germinates.
Even without a crossover, Locke & Key still has plenty of stories to tell, with many unanswered questions from season two. Even with the similar genres and roots in comics, it's clear why the creators don't want to go forward with a crossover right away, for in all storytelling, especially fantasy stories, it's important to know where the boundaries of the universe exist, so that way, there are always tangible consequences to actions, which is a theme that's been prevalent in Locke & Key's two seasons. Still, fans can remain hopeful that Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode might one day share an adventure with Dream and Lucifer.
Source: CBR