Zac Efron to star in adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter

Another Stephen King adaptation is on the way as Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions and Weed Road Productions have announced that they're developing a feature-film based on Stephen King's "Firestarter" that is slated to star Zac Efron (EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE).

FIRESTARTER follows a young girl who develops pyrokinetic abilities and is abducted by a secret government agency that wants to harness her powerful gift as a weapon. The film will be helmed by Keith Thomas (THE VIGIL) from a script by Scott Teems (HALLOWEEN KILLS). As first reported by Collider, it's said that Zac Efron will play Andy McGee, the father of the young pyrokinetic girl. The novel previously received a feature-film adaptation in 1984 in a film that starred Drew Barrymore and David Keith. Thomas has previously stated that King has given the script his seal of approval and that he's pretty excited to see the project take shape.

It's a new adaptation of the book. When Jason Blum pitched it to me it was exciting, as that's one of my favorite Stephen King novels, and whilst I really like the 1980's film, I felt we could do something new. The screenplay is by Scott Teems who wrote the upcoming Halloween Kills, it's an amazing script. It has everything you would want, people's heads catching fire and their faces melting off, and a dad and daughter on the run trying to survive being chased in this heightened tense experience. We are hoping to film this year, it will be a lot of fun.

The 1984 version of FIRESTARTER didn't receive the best reviews at the time, so there's certainly room for the new adaptation to improve on what came before and continue our recent trend of quality Stephen King projects.