Movies - Firestarter : Trailer Reveals a New Stephen King Adaptation

By Mulder, 09 february 2022

Firestarter is a science fiction-horror thriller novel by Stephen King, first published in September 1980. In July and August 1980, two excerpts from the novel were published in Omni. In 1981, Firestarter was nominated as Best Novel for the British Fantasy Award, Locus Poll Award, and Balrog Award. In 1984, it was adapted into a film. A miniseries follow-up to the film, Firestarter: Rekindled, was released in 2002 on the Sci-Fi Channel and a remake from Blumhouse Productions is scheduled for release on May 13, 2022. The book is dedicated to author Shirley Jackson: "In Memory of Shirley Jackson, who never needed to raise her voice."

In this new adaptation of the Stephen King novel, produced by Jason Blum and Akiva Goldsman (Invisible man), a young girl with extraordinary pyrokinetic powers tries to protect her family from dark forces that seek to capture her and exploit her abilities.

For more than a decade, Andy (Zac Efron, Extremely wicked, Shockingly evil and vile, The greatest showman) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon, Fear the Walking Dead, Succession) have been constantly on the move to escape a shadowy federal agency that seeks to capture their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong, American Horror Story, The tomorrow war). She has an extraordinary ability to pyrokinesis that the agency would like to use to create a weapon of mass destruction. Andy has taught his daughter to control her anger or pain that triggers her power. But Charlie is now 11 years old and is finding it increasingly difficult to control her emotions - and therefore the fire. When the agency discovers where she and her parents are staying, a mysterious agent (Michael Greyeyes, Wild indian, Rutherford Falls) is sent on a mission to track down the family and seize Charlie. But the young girl does not intend to let herself go...

Firestarter stars Kurtwood Smith (Amityville: the awakening, Hitchcock), John Beasley (American nightmare 2: anarchy, the sum of all fears), and Gloria Reuben (Lincoln, Mr robot). The music is signed by the legendary John Carpenter (Halloween, Christine, Fog) and his two faithful composers of the Halloween saga, Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. 

Directed by Keith Thomas (The vigil), from a screenplay by Scott Teems (Halloween kills), based on the novel by Stephen King, Firestarter is produced by Jason Blum (Halloween, Invisible man) for Blumhouse and Oscar-winning producer Akiva Goldsman (I am a legend, Constantine) for Weed Road Pictures. Ryan Turek, Gregory Lessans, Scott Teems, Martha De Laurentiis, J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules are executive producing.

Firestarter is scheduled to be released in the United States by Universal Pictures simultaneously in theaters and on Peacock on May 13, 2022 and in France June 1 2022.

Synopsis : 
A young girl who has developed prokinetic powers is kidnapped by a government agency that wants to use her as a weapon.

Firestarter
Directed by Keith Thomas
Screenplay by Scott Teems
Based on Firestarter by Stephen King
Produced by Jason Blum, Akiva Goldsman
Starring  Zac Efron, Michael Greyeyes, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Gloria Reuben, Sydney Lemmon
Cinematography : Karim Hussain
Music by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, Daniel Davies
Production companies : Blumhouse Productions, Weed Road Pictures, BoulderLight Pictures, Angry Adam Productions
Distributed by Universal Pictures (United States), Universal Pictures International France (France)
Release date : May 13, 2022 (United States), June 1, 2022 (France)

Photos : Copyright Universal Pictures

(Source : press release)