Following Thursday’s news regarding an upcoming remake of John Hughes’ 1988 comedy The Great Outdoors, Universal Pictures and horror studio Blumhouse Productions revealed plans to develop a remake of Firestarter, the 1984 film based on a Stephen King story of the same name.
Not only is a Firestarter remake in the works, but the studios also announced that the project already has a director in Akiva Goldsman (Winter’s Tale, Fringe) and a script penned by Scott Teems (Rectify).
The original Firestarter novel written by King follows a young girl who inherits powerful pyrokinetic abilities from her parents and is pursued by a mysterious government agency intent on weaponizing her powers. King’s novel was published in 1980 and was turned into a feature film helmed by director Mark Lester in 1984.
The 1984 film starred Drew Barrymore as the young girl, Charlie, and the cast was filled out by David Keith, Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, and Heather Locklear. The film spawned a 2002 television miniseries, Firestarter: Rekindled, that served as a sequel to the movie.
King has indicated that the 1984 film was among his least favorite adaptations of his novels, so it will be interesting to see if the remake can hew closer to the source material and earn King’s approval. The film is likely to be just the second feature directed by veteran producer and screenwriter Goldsman, who has directed several episodes of Fringe, an episode of the 2009 miniseries Kings, and a 2015 episode of the television documentary series Breakthrough up to this point. However, Goldsman does have one Academy Award on his resume already, having penned the Oscar-winning screenplay for A Beautiful Mind.
This isn’t Goldsman’s first work on one of King’s projects, either. He penned one of the recent drafts of the script for the upcoming movie based on The Dark Tower.
There is no word on when the Firestarter remake is expected to hit theaters.
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