Back in October, Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions decided to release their movie Halloween Kills into theatres and onto the Peacock streaming service on the same day. Now it has been announced that they’re taking the same approach to the Stephen King adaptation Firestarter – the film will be reaching theatres and Peacock on May 13th. Along with this release date / strategy announcement, a trailer for Firestarter has also arrived online and can be seen in the embed above.
Directed by Keith Thomas (The Vigil) from a screenplay by Halloween Kills co-writer Scott Teems, the film is based on the 1980 Stephen King novel Firestarter (buy a copy HERE). It has the following synopsis:
In a new adaptation of Stephen King’s classic thriller from the producers of The Invisible Man, a girl with extraordinary pyrokinetic powers fights to protect her family and herself from sinister forces that seek to capture and control her.
For more than a decade, parents Andy and Vicky have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction. Andy has taught Charlie how to defuse her power, which is triggered by anger or pain. But as Charlie turns 11, the fire becomes harder and harder to control. After an incident reveals the family’s location, a mysterious operative is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans.
Ryan Kiera Armstrong (American Horror Story) stars as “firestarter” Charlie McGee. She is joined in the cast by Zac Efron (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile) as Charlie’s father Andy, Sydney Lemmon (Fear the Walking Dead) as Charlie’s mother and Andy’s wife Vicky, Michael Greyeyes (Blood Quantum) as the assassin Rainbird, and Gloria Reuben (ER) in an unspecified lead role. Kurtwood Smith (RoboCop) and John Beasley (The Purge: Anarchy) are in the film as well.
This Firestarter is coming to us from Blumhouse, Weed Road Productions, and Universal Pictures. Blumhouse founder Jason Blum is producing with Akiva Goldsman. The late Martha De Laurentiis served as executive producer alongside Teems, Ryan Turek, Gregory Lessans, J.D. Lifshitz, and Raphael Margules.. At one time, Goldsman had been attached to direct the film, and at another point Fatih Akin was going to direct it.
Today’s press release also reveals the very cool news that the Firestarter score was composed by the legendary John Carpenter, along with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies! An interesting bit of trivia: John Carpenter very nearly directed an adaptation of Firestarter back in the 1980s. Released in ’84, that movie ended up being directed by Mark L. Lester and starred Drew Barrymore, David Keith, Heather Locklear, Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, Louise Fletcher, and Art Carney. If Carpenter had directed Firestarter, he almost certainly would have composed the score as well. Nearly forty years later, we’re going to have the chance to hear a Carpenter Firestarter score.
Copies of Lester’s Firestarter can be purchased HERE.