Stephen King's Firestarter Reboot Movie Starts Filming In June
Filming on the new adaptation of iconic horror author Stephen King’s Firestarter is officially set to begin in June. Fans of the sci-fi horror tale have been patiently waiting for the film ever since it was first announced all the way back in 2010. With some of its cast having been teased over the past several months, the project appears to finally be moving forward.
It’s no secret that the first time King’s 1980 novel was turned into a big screen feature, it failed to impress either King or audiences in general. With a cast that included Martin Sheen, Heather Locklear and a young Drew Barrymore, the film didn’t lack for star power, but its biggest failings seemed to come from a script that dumped everything that made King’s original story so tense and layered with intrigue. The story is focused on a young girl called Charlie (Barrymore) whose pyrokinetic abilities make her a target of the U.S. government’s Department of Scientific Intelligence, a.k.a., The Shop. The desire to weaponize the child’s abilities keeps Charlie and her father Andy on the run, but ultimately a showdown takes place, with Charlie using her pyrokinetic powers to save herself from government agents.
With information on the upcoming remake coming in small increments for years now, fans will breathe a sigh of relief over news from THR that Firestarter will begin filming this coming June. The information was delivered during an interview with producer Akiva Goldsman, who didn’t quite go so far as guaranteeing the June filming date, but did give a rough estimate. For fans of King and the original Firestarter novel, this is the closest the project has come to officially kicking off in over a decade:
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.
The new film has Zac Efron onboard as Charlie’s father, Andy, but so far the role of Charlie has not been cast. It’s certainly one of the most vital elements to pulling off a solid adaptation, and fans have no shortage of suggestions as to who would be best suited for the role. But even if Goldsman’s production settles on the best possible Charlie, adapting a King novel has consistently proven a very challenging prospect for many over the years. The fact that the film’s script reportedly remains more faithful to its original source material is something that arguably needs to happen more often with King adaptations.
By this point, so much time has passed in getting Firestarter off the ground that some have a hard time believing that the end product will be worth the wait. Development hell has often been the kiss of death for too many projects, but in the case of Firestarter, the biggest hope is that it surpasses the quality of the 1984 adaptation. There’s obviously no way to guarantee success, but at the very least, this new adaptation of Firestarter will give audiences a chance to see a King adaptation that strives to honor its highly unique source material.
Source: THR