Stephen King Has Given Firestarter Remake Script His Approval

Stephen King has given the thumbs up to the script for the planned Firestarter remake. Keith Thomas is directing the planned re-adaptation of King’s 1980 novel and spoke with Zavvi about the film while promoting his new horror film The Vigil. He said that Firestarter is one of his favorite King books and noted that King himself has read the script by Scott Teems.

“It’s a new adaptation of the book,” Thomas said. “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.”

Thomas added that King “watched The Vigil, approved me as director and he read the script from the early stages, and he’s very happy with it. He’s excited for it, he’s there the whole way.”

The film is being developed by Universal and Blumhouse. The original film was released in 1984 and starred Drew Barrymore and David Keith, focusing on Barrymore’s young girl who develops pyrokinesis and the secret government agency known as the Shop which seeks to control her.