Corona | Coming Attractions

A remake of the 1984 movie Firestarter, which was an adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name, is in the planning stages.

The Dino De Laurentiis Company still has the rights to the property. De Laurentiis produced the first movie, which starred Drew Barrymore as a eight-year-old girl born with the power to start fires with her mind, and the company is also developing the Firestarter remake. However, what's being discussed about the new Firestarter is the idea of shaping it into a movie franchise right from its start. King's novel has a fairly solid ending, and the antagonists are pretty much all cinders at the conclusion of the novel, but you know that just because the book ends one way that the movie can end differently.

The project is set up at Universal, and Mark L. Smith (Vacancy, The Hole) has been hired to write the Firestarter remake screenplay. "We see this as a unique, character-driven thriller with a supernatural edge, based on a timeless concept and enhanced by recent visual effects advances," said Martha De Laurentiis, the surviving wife of Dino and a film producer in her own right.

Perhaps one of the new angles being introduced in the 21st century Firestarter movie has to do with the original concept of Charlie McGee's power. In the 1984 film where Drew Barrymore played the character she had substantial pyrokinetic abilities, but in King's novel it's hinted that if she didn't hold herself back, she could conceivably destroy the world. Martha De Laurentiis mentions "recent visual effects advances" as a way to push the new Firestarter film further ahead of what its earlier counterpart could show audiences. Perhaps this will entail showing more powerful pyrokinetic abilities of Charlie McGee.