Recently, The Blumhouse Production announced the remake of the novel by Stephen King, Firestarter. It is a science fiction horror novel published in 1980. The novel was nominated for British Fantasy Award, Balrog Award, and Locus Poll Award for Best Novel. King dedicated the book to author Shirley Jackson.
The story of the novel revolves around two characters Charlene “Charlie” and Andy McGee, and the daughter-father pair from a government agency known as The Shop. During the college days, Andy participated in a Shop experiment dealing with a drug having hallucinogenic effects similar to LSD named, Lot 6. The drug gave Victoria, his future wife minor abilities of telekinetic and gave him a telepathic form of mind. Overuse of the drug gives him crippling migraine headaches and also minute brain hemorrhages. But their daughter Charlie has developed a frightening ability which allows her to control and create fire with psychic ability.
The novel was adapted into a film in 1984 with the same name as the novel. The movie was directed by Mark L. Lester and stars Drew Barrymore, David Keith, George C. Scott, and Martin Sheen. The film was shot in Chimney Rock, Wilmington, and Lake Lure, North Carolina. Later a miniseries was also created inspired by the novel titled, Firestarter: Rekindled which was released in 2002, and now Blumhouse is again planning to make a remake. The 1984 movie did not receive good reviews and got a rating of 37% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews. Stephen King described the film as one of the worst adaptations of his novels in 2012 in an interview and described it as “flavorless”.
The upcoming movie Firestarter will be directed by a newcomer Keith Thomas. He is an educator, director, and anti-sexist activist. He is known for his American supernatural horror movie The Vigil. And the screenplay is written by writer Scott Teems who is also involved in the project Halloween Kills.
The team has been working on the project since 2017, but the progress is moving very slow. The original adaptation of the novel was not a hit, rather a flop, and it also failed to impress King as well. It is always difficult to adapt a novel into a big-screen adaptation. King’s The Shining, which was adopted by Stanley Kubrick performed well in the box office, but King was not satisfied either with that. And he later remade a mini TV series in 1999. King wrote the screenplay of the movie himself and produced it as well. However, King will not be included as the screenplay writer of the upcoming project Firestarter. As the cast of the movie, Efron will play the character of Charlie’s father, Andy McGee. Efron is a fantastic choice for the lead role, while some think that he might not be the best choice who can pull off the King’s character well. But Efron is working hard to improve his growth as an actor away from his ab flaunting image. His performance in the biopic of Ted Bundy, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile was a significant change in pace for the star and received much appreciation.
Fans are speculating and waiting to know who will play the character of Andrew and his daughter, Charlie, in the movie. Hopefully, the team will soon disclose the cast, though it is good to know that the production work of the film is moving forward.
The above is all about the upcoming Stephen King’s novel adaptation, Firestarter. I hope you like the article.
Source : https://247kama.com/blog/blumhouse-and-stephens-firestarter-remake/
