For his latest screen project, Joe Cornish – the director behind Attack The Block and The Kid Who Would Be King – is moving to serialised storytelling, for a fresh take on his favoured youngsters-vs-the-supernatural theme. He’s behind new Netflix series Lockwood & Co, a ghost-hunting mystery-adventure, set in a version of our world where spectres are an everyday problem, and teams of, well, ghost-busters make it their business to take them down. Cornish’ series adapts the novels by Jonathan Stroud, and according to the director there’s plenty more mileage in the source material beyond Season 1.
Speaking to Empire in the new issue, Cornish confirms that the initial run of Lockwood & Co covers the first two books in Stroud’s five-book series. “So there’s definitely a couple more seasons in the books,” he points out – going on to say that the continued story is one sure to satisfy viewers. “One of the things I don’t like about episodic telly is when it doesn’t know how it’s going to end,” he says. “You get that thing Lost had where it’s all promise and no delivery. But the story in the books is very well-plotted. Jonathan Stroud solidifies the world and thinks of clever ways to explore it the more the books go on. It really goes somewhere, and it does have an end. So yeah, we’d love to do more.”
The plan is that viewers will be hooked on the story of Ruby Stokes’ Lucy – the newcomer to underdog spirit-battling agency Lockwood & Co, run by two teenage boys – and captured by the series’ inventive take on ghost lore. Here, the phantom menaces are inspired by the look of old, Victorian spirit photography. “That was the inception point of how we [as a culture] visually represent ghosts, through old tricks like semi-transparent mirrors, double exposures and using wet cheesecloth to represent ectoplasm,” says VFX supervisor Sean Mathieson.
The result is a series of incrementally ghastly ghouls – from the relatively manageable Type 1, right up to the totally terrifying Type 3 – visualised in increasingly ominous, billowing hues. “There’s fireplace smoke, or cigarette smoke, or there are giant tyre fires, which produce this big, evil, black-looking smoke,” Mathieson explains. “That’s how we were able to give each of our ghosts unique characters, by changing that smoke.” Think you ain’t afraid of no ghosts? Think again…
Read Empire’s full Lockwood & Co feature – speaking to Cornish and his collaborators on the ghoulish world of the series – in the Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania issue, on sale Thursday 19 January and available to pre-order online here. Lockwood & Co comes to Netflix on 27 January.