#Firestarter Remake Team Receives Stephen King’s Burning Love Ahead of Filming

As film adaptations of Stephen King novels continue to be all the rage nowadays, the demand for more and more of Mr. King’s properties is ever constant. With successes like that of It, Pet Sematary and Doctor Sleep, it was only natural that we would see the return of Firestarter, a film formerly led by Drew Barrymore in 1984.

The plot of the Firestarter novel revolves around a family on the run from government forces as they use telekinetic and pyrokinetic abilities to escape from the ever present danger that surrounds them. The plot of the 1984 follows the same beats as the book, through which a much more simplified layout of the story. The film holds a 37% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based off 27 reviews.
RELATED: Firestarter Reboot Will Respect the Original Movie While Digging Further Into the Book
With the expectation of Firestarter: Rekindled, there wouldn’t be any news of anything related to the Firestarter property until April 28th of 2017. Jason Blum and Akiva Goldsman had made the announcement that they would be rebooting the film for both Blumhouse and Universal. Faith Akin was originally set to direct the project, but that has since changed to Keith Thomas. Moving to 2021, responding to a recent update regarding the film’s current standing in production, the master of horror himself, Stephen King, sent out a shout out over Twitter to the cast and crew.

I’m sending cast and crew a hunka hunka burning love. https://t.co/rGr9Z0f7k0

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 29, 2021

The cast of the new Firestarter film consists of both Zac Efron and Michael Greyeyes who will play the roles of Andy McGee and John Rainbird, respectively. The film is set to begin filming sometime this May in Hamiliton, Ontario, Canada. This news came from the Hamiliton Spectator, which also brought attention to King coming to visit the city during the filming of 11.22.63 in 2015, possibly indicating the return of the author at some point.

As far as the stars themselves within the film, Zac Efron of Neighbours fame will look to continue his run of more dramatic roles that he started with Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. As well, Michael Greyeyes will continue his run of the dramatic that he has found in television in shows like Fear the Walking Dead and True Detective.

For those who are waiting for the reboot to make it to the big screen, in an April 15th talk with Cinemablend, Akiva Goldsman talked about the project and what to look forward to.

“Firestarter is one of the last great, either unmade or un-remade, Stephen King novels that have become classics. There are things I will never forget from the original movie. But it diverged from the book significantly. So Scott Teems – who is a really wonderful writer – wrote this terrific script which is much closer to the novel in both incident and tone. We start shooting, I want to say, in 12 weeks. Firestarter was always some of Stephen’s most intimate and affective horror, and I think pyrokinesis is a really fascinating idea when it comes to the expression of hidden feelings.”

Time will tell if Firestarter truly does reach the same heights as other Stephen King adaptations.

Topics: Firestarter