Having just shown the premiere of their horror film Stephanie at the Overlook Film Festival, Jason Blum and Akiva Goldsman have announced that they’re teaming up for another film: a remake of Firestarter.
Deadline reports that the duo will be working with Universal and Blum’s Blumhouse production company to bring a new version of Stephen King’s novel to the big screen, which was previously made into a film in 1984 by Mark L Lester.
It starred Drew Barrymore as the titular pyrokinetic who has been living on the run with her father (played by David Keith). They’re hunted by sinister government forces who want to get their hands on the girl, personified in the film by Martin Sheen and George C Scott. A TV movie sequel followed in 2002 called Firestarter: Rekindled, starring Marguerite Moreau, Malcolm McDowell and Dennis Hopper. It was…not very good.
Scott Teems, veteran of acclaimed TV show Rectify, will be writing while Martha De Laurentiis is also on board as a producer.
A veteran screenwriter, Goldsman made the jump into directing with episodes of Kings and Fringe before making his feature debut with poorly-received New York fable Winter’s Tale in 2014. Stephanie stars Frank Grillo, Anna Torv, Harold Perrineau, Kenneth Choi and Shree Crooks in the title role, in which “An orphaned young girl with unworldly powers is taken in by a man and woman who claim to be her parents.”
It doesn’t sound like too big a leap from there to Firestarter, does it? The original movie is solid, but we can’t help but wonder what might have been if John Carpenter had been allowed to make it. They should definitely find a Native American actor to play John Rainbird this time, though, much as we love George C Scott and Malcolm McDowell.
And so another Stephen King project rolls into production…
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