There is no questioning that the most popular story set in the fictional town of Derry, Maine is IT, but any of Stephen King’s committed Constant Readers will tell you that it’s definitely not the author’s only book set in that terrible, dark place. While it doesn’t exist in literature on the same level as Castle Rock, there are a number of other novels and stories that either take place in the dark city or at least visit – with titles including 11.22.63, Insomnia, Dreamcatcher, Bag Of Bones, and even The Running Man. Needless to say, the world that King builds is expansive… and it makes one wonder how that reality will be represented in the new HBO series IT: Welcome To Derry.

For that question, showrunners Brad Caleb Kane and Jason Fuchs have an answer. I spoke with the duo earlier this month during the virtual press day for the upcoming Stephen King series, and one topic I asked about was Derry’s considerable representation in the author’s works. The show is principally focused on the story from IT, and the presence of Dick Halloran means that both The Shining and Doctor Sleep are in play, but what about all of those other titles I mentioned above? Kane responded:

For those who aren’t familiar with Insomnia, it’s not regarded as one of Stephen King’s best books, but it is the second most substantial Derry story in the King canon. Without explaining too much or digging too deeply into spoilers, the novel features a protagonist who finds a growing sleeplessness problem transform into the ability to see elements of reality beyond normal human perception. It unwittingly leads him into becoming a key plot involving the forces of fate and an agent who must do everything he can to stop a horrible terrorist attack.

So if anything reminiscent of that ends up a part of IT: Welcome To Derry’s first season, you’ll know where it’s from.

Kane continued, adding that it was really important that the show not simply be an assembly of easter eggs and tie-ins that distract from the story that he and his fellow writers wanted to tell… but he also added that there are a great number of details and references that fans should be looking for. He added:

Adding to his co-showrunner’s comments, Jason Fuchs noted that it won’t just be books set in Derry represented on the show. It would seem that the full Stephen King canon is fair game, and he name-dropped one title that I definitely didn’t expect to be invoked:

Firestarter is an unexpected mention because it’s one of early King novels that doesn’t actually take place in Maine, as the story instead travels around states including Ohio, New York, Vermont, and Virginia. I will be very curious to see how IT: Welcome To Derry finds a way to reference the tale of young pyrokinetic Charlie McGee and the sinister government agency known as The Shop.

But then Brad Caleb Kane really flexed his Stephen King fan muscles and brought into the conversation the author’s magnum opus: The Dark Tower. It has been confirmed that the show will be digging into the origins of IT a.k.a. Pennywise, and the co-showrunner’s comments make me wonder if that part of the journey will let audiences experience a taste of Mid-World. He added,

The wait ends tonight. After years of development (first announced in early 2022 as a HBO Max series), IT: Welcome To Derry will be making its world premiere tonight on HBO – with the pilot set to simultaneously debut for HBO Max subscribers. After you watch, make sure to head back here to CinemaBlend, as we’ll have a feature live for you examining all of the various Stephen King easter eggs and references.

Stephen King remakes have been a thing since 1997 when the author made his own adaptation of The Shining as an ABC miniseries, and while we’ve seen plenty others produced and released in the years since then, one imagines that we’re probably going to see a whole lot more in the near future. Any Constant Reader will point out that there are still a number of novels, novellas and short stories that haven’t been translated to live-action yet (not to mention the fact that King is still publishing at least one book annually), but that’s certainly not a fact that’s going to stop Hollywood from keeping an eye on the classics and calculating whether or not it’s time for younger generations to get something different.

It feels like a wave has been growing since the release of Andy Muschietti’s IT in 2017, which has been followed by remakes of Pet Sematary and The Stand in the last few years, and new versions of Salem’s Lot, Christine, The Dark Half, The Running Man and more populate the list of upcoming Stephen King movies and TV projects. Keith Thomas’ Firestarter is obviously a part of this trend as well.

As far as Hollywood remake calculations go, Universal Pictures actually first determined that the time was right for a fresh take on the pyrokinesis story more than a decade ago. It was in December 2010 that the studio and Dino De Laurentiis Co. (the producers of the 1984 adaptation) began development on new Firestarter, and they had some ambitious hopes. Mark L. Smith, the writer of 2007’s Vacancy, was hired to pen the script, and plans were made to try and have the project be the start of a franchise.

Instead of becoming a hot, fast-tracked project at Universal, however, Firestarter took a long trip through development hell, and it wasn’t until April 2017 that it finally found some viable footing. It was then that the studio put the film in the hands of their partners at Blumhouse Productions, and instead of Mark L. Smith handling screenwriting duties, Scott Teems was hired to develop an original draft and Akiva Goldsman was brought on as a director.

Goldsman, who has a complicated history with Stephen King adaptations thanks to his crack at The Dark Tower, didn’t ultimately stay aboard to direct, and he was replaced by filmmaker Keith Thomas in 2019 (though he is still credited as a producer). About 10-and-a-half years after the Firestarter remake was announced, principal photography began in May 2021, and the film was released almost exactly one year later with a hybrid distribution model – premiering in theaters and on Peacock the same day.

Unfortunately, things didn’t exactly work out as planned – and Firestarter most definitely didn’t inspire any sequel talks. Critics at large rejected the remake and so did audiences, as the movie only made $15 million playing in cinemas around the world. It’s a sad story at the center of this week’s Adapting Stephen King.

How Keith Thomas’ Firestarter Differs From Mark L. Lester’s Firestarter

When director Mark L. Lester was making the original Firestarter adaptation in the early 1980s, he inherited a script that was going to be directed by John Carpenter and deviated heavily from the book. Not satisfied with the work, Lester teamed with screenwriter Stanley Mann to create a whole new draft – one that directly translated the story from Stephen King’s novel into live action. Some changes were implemented by the filmmakers, but what unfolds in the movie is, for all practical purposes, identical to what happens in the source material.

Naturally, this had an impact on the way that that Keith Thomas and Scott Teems wanted to approach the work for the remake. When I interviewed Thomas a couple months prior to the start of production on Firestarter, I asked him about his relationship with the 1984 film and its influence on the take that was being crafted, and he explained,

When actually comparing the movies side-by-side, Keith Thomas’ Firestarter doesn’t really do much to bring back details from the novel that the original adaptation cut out, but there is one exception, and it concerns Zac Efron’s Andy McGee.

While the 1984 film puts the vast majority of focus on Drew Barrymore’s young, fire-conjuring Charlie McGee, the remake provides audiences with more from her father’s life – specifically the way that he makes a living while on the run from the government. As in the book, Andy has a little shingle for private motivational consultations. While customers think that they are getting life-changing therapy, their therapist is actually using his unique super power to mentally “push” them to break bad habits like smoking and overeating.

It’s a fun addition for Constant Readers who missed that bit in the original Firestarter… but it’s inclusion as a way of being more faithful to the book is really drowned out by the massive changes that are made to the rest of the story.

How Keith Thomas’ Firestarter Differs From The Book

Keith Thomas’ Firestarter is similar to the aforementioned remakes of Pet Sematary and The Stand. When an adaptation that is super faithful already exists, there is motivation to try and change things up with a remake and create something that stands apart from what has already been done. In this particular case, the heart of the story remains – a father and daughter with psychic abilities go on the run from a government agency that wishes to experiment on them – but a significant number of key details are altered, including the ending.

At the start of the film, a flashback reveals that all of the superpowers featured in the story originate from an experimental drug called Lot 6, but much of what happens in the aftermath that sets up the main story is original. In Stephen King’s novel, the government agency known as the Department of Scientific Intelligence a.k.a. The Shop keeps what could be described as loose tabs on the McGee family, only choosing to make a move and try to abduct Charlie McGee when she is eight years old.

In the 2022 movie, it’s established not only that Andy and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) have been on the run ever since The Shop tried to take Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) as a baby, but also that McGee isn’t their real last name. Instead, it’s a fake name so that they can try and set up a life and Charlie can go to school.

The Firestarter remake also makes significant changes to the characters’ power sets in the film. For starters, Vicky is telekinetic instead of being telepathic, and Andy has telepathy in addition to his mind control ability. In the book, their offspring develops with a new gift as a result – pyrokinesis – but that’s not the case in the film. Instead, she has the ability to conjure flames as well as both her parents’ gifts.

Along similar lines, John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes) is not merely depicted as an agent who works for the D.S.I.; he is a former test subject just like Andy and Vicky. This gives the character a bit more depth than the pure psychopath that is in the book, and he is additionally brought into the story at an earlier point (unlike the novel, he is the one who kills Vicky, which leads to Andy and Charlie going on the run).

In faithfulness to the source material, Keith Thomas’ movie keeps the sequence at the Manders homestead as part of the story, but everything plays out differently. Instead of featuring Irv and Norma as an elderly couple who winds up helping and defending the McGees, Irv in the film, played by John Beasley, is featured as suffering from dementia while caring for his comatose wife (Sheila Boyd), and he ends up calling the cops on them.

In the novel, Andy and Charlie escape the Manders’ farm and make it to a remote cabin, but the 2022 movie features Andy getting captured by Rainbird at the scene while Charlie escapes. In King’s version, Charlie is never on her own out in the world (she is brought to The Shop at the same time as her father), but the remake adds a time period where the young protagonist hones her abilities while alone in the woods before making her way to rescue Andy.

The end of the book and the end of the movie both feature Charlie using her powers to burn D.S.I. to the ground, but the circumstances are totally different. Instead of the girl setting the facility ablaze following the death of her father, it’s Andy who essentially makes her do it by utilizing his push power while he is being held hostage by Captain Jane Hollister (Gloria Reuben). Instead of killing Rainbird amidst all the chaos, she spares him – seeing him as a victim despite the fact that he killed her mother – and they go off together as the credits roll.

Is It Worthy Of The King?

Keith Thomas’ Firestarter got decimated by critics. It has a grimace-worthy 10 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, which means that only one out of every 10 reviews registered on the site gave the film a passing grade. That’s a terrible ratio – and I don’t think it’s totally fair.

While I won’t defend every choice that is made in the movie (I actually really hate Charlie and Rainbird joining forces at the end), there are big swings away from the novel that I appreciate. For example, it never did sit right with me in the book that The Shop would take a wait-and-see approach with Charlie’s birth, and that’s rectified in this version of the story. Compared to the 1984 adaptation, Vicky has a much more substantial role, and there is an interesting debate raised regarding how to tame Charlie’s powers. And while I don’t like the conclusion of his arc, John Rainbird is certainly given more complexity by Scott Teems’ script.

It’s never going to be viewed as one of the greatest Stephen King movies, but Firestarter’s positive attributes aren’t represented in its reputation garnered in the months since its release, and should at the very least be offered some consideration from King fans for what it does with the material and the existence of the previous adaptation.

How To Watch Keith Thomas’ Firestarter

Firestarter’s streaming situation is a bit strange. As noted earlier, the movie premiered on Peacock at the same time that it hit theaters, but the Universal-owned subscription service no longer has it in the library. Instead, you’ll presently find it over at Amazon where it is available to watch with an Amazon Prime Video subscription. If you don’t have Prime, you can purchase digital copies on Google Play, Vudu, and Apple. For all of you physical media folks working to build the ultimate Stephen King collection, a Collector’s Edition Blu-ray was released in June 2022.

After nearly two years of writing this column, my last weekly Adapting Stephen King piece will be going live next Wednesday in the CinemaBlend Streaming section, and I’ll be taking a look at what presently is the most recent King movie: director John Lee Hancock’s Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, based on the novella of the same name from “If It Bleeds.” Meanwhile, you can find my previous 89 features by clicking through the banners below.

Stephen King, an avid Twitter user, has been known to give away franchise ideas for free on social media. For example, he has a vision for the future of the Friday The 13th movies, and it’s with a sequel titled I, Jason. More recently, the author/filmmaker pointed his attention toward the world of the Predator. Following the successful and critically acclaimed launch of Prey on Hulu, King suggested that the next chapter of the sci-fi series see the alien go toe-to-toe with some of his own creations – namely the Children of the Corn.

Reading this Tweet got my Constant Reader brain whirring. If Children of the Corn is an interesting match-up for the Predator, what other Stephen King-created killers could fill that role as well? That musing has coalesced in the form of this feature, and an analysis of King characters who could make an interesting rival for one of pop culture’s most battle-hungry monsters.

The Children Of The Corn From “Children Of The Corn”

It makes sense to start with Stephen King’s actual pitch, right? Because in addition to being the inspiration for this feature, it’s also a pretty fun and screwed up idea. The children of Gatlin, Nebraska kill anyone over the age of 18 who makes the mistake of coming into their territory, and their sacrifice is offered to the mystical He Who Walks Behind The Rows to ensure a healthy harvest of corn.

What makes the Children of the Corn a fascinating foe for the Predator is the question of how they might fit into whatever moral code the aliens’ possess. We know that they won’t kill an opponent that is unarmed, but do they have an issue killing a child? And if they don’t have an issue with one child, what about an entire village of them? It would be a strange thing to see this movie made with the young religious zealots as protagonists, but I would most definitely watch.

John Rainbird From Firestarter

John Rainbird is the principal antagonist in Firestarter, and has some standout qualities – one that immediately stands out being that he is a psychopath. He is introduced in the story as a mercenary who operates as a hired gun for a division of the government known as The Shop, and he becomes obsessed with the girl he is tasked with hunting down: Charlie McGee, a powerful young girl with pyrokinesis. He demonstrates a fascination with the supernatural right up until his fiery death in the book, and perhaps that can be tied to an experience with an extraterrestrial earlier in his life?

We don’t learn a whole lot about John Rainbird’s history in Firestarter, but one thing we do know is that he is a Vietnam veteran, and that would make for an excellent background for a Predator hunt. The jungle setting would present a challenge for filmmakers attempting to differentiate the story from past Predator movies, but it’s a tale that could add new perspective in regards to why Rainbird is who he is in Stephen King’s novel, and the battle could be used as a jumping off point to craft commentary about the international conflict.

Pennywise From IT

When you look at the Predator franchise from a certain angle, the eponymous aliens very much seem like bullies. They a biologically bigger than humans and possess weaponry that is far more advanced, and yet they’re constantly depicted as coming to Earth to hunt us. Looking at the Stephen King canon of killers, it feels only fair that the extraterrestrial get paired with at least one villain that isn’t native to the planet – and Pennywise The Dancing Clown would present a fantastic challenge.

Pennywise from IT is an extraterrestrial entity that feeds on fear and spends generations making a haven for itself in Derry, Maine and consuming members of the populace. It lures its prey using its shapeshifting ability, and frequently transforms into said prey’s greatest terror before introducing its true form: the Deadlights. It may seem kind of dumb on its surface, but a Predator vs. Pennywise film would be fascinating for a few reasons – including the fact that it would probably demand the Predator be a protagonist, and also because the movie would surely end up depicting what a Predator is afraid of… and that’s surely something that any fan of the franchise would want to see.

Chet Ondowsky From “If It Bleeds”

Unlike all of the other Stephen King-created killers on this list, Chet Ondowsky is the only one who has not yet been featured in film or television… but give it time. He is the principal antagonist in the novella “If It Bleeds,” a sequel to The Outsider, and he is similar to Pennywise in that he is not human – even though he appears to be. Despite this connection, I felt he is an appropriate character to pitch anyway, as his relationship with a Predator would be completely different than IT.

Chet Ondowsky (which, of course, isn’t his real name, but a guise) is another one of Stephen King’s emotional vampires (for lack of a better identifier), and what he feeds on is the pain that comes from loss. All of the Predator movies that have been made thus far have been about the aliens hunting the protagonists, but Chet is a monster that could flip that script and stalk the Predator, feeding on the hurt that is left in the wake of the alien’s kills. It also happens to be pretty funny that "If It Bleeds" is reminiscent of an iconic line from 1987's Predator – albeit there is no relationship in their actual usage (the novella title is a reference on the phrase "If it bleeds, it leads," not "If it bleeds, we can kill it.")

While we wait to see if any of these pop culture face offs ever actually come to fruition (spoiler alert: none of them will), fans can enjoy the latest adventure with the Predator, Prey, by picking up a Hulu subscription. For more about Stephen King, you can learn about all of the film and TV projects in the works with our Upcoming Stephen King guide, see our ranking of the Best Stephen King movies, and learn about the long history of adaptations with my weekly Adapting Stephen King column.

One could make a strong argument that no single creator has made a greater contribution to pop culture in the last 50 years than Stephen King. It all began with Carrie, the book in 1974 and the movie in 1976, and the author since then has not only established himself as one of the most prolific professional writers alive, but a cross-medium legend. He puts out at least one new book (be it a novel, a collection of short stories, or non-fiction) annually, and it’s actually rare for a year to go by in the 21st century without seeing at least one adaptation premiere on either the big screen or on television.

Between Stephen King movies, books, and TV, his body of work also happens to be a wonderful playground for fans who see themselves as “collectors” – and if you’re one of those people, we’ve built this feature for you. I’ve personally spent years building my own perfect Stephen King collection, and knowing there is a wide world of Constant Readers out there I figured I’d lend a hand helping others do the same. From Carrie, to IT, to Holly, let’s dig in! 

Stephen King Books

It all starts with the books, so we’ll begin the collecting journey here. More advanced collectors (and those with the available disposable income) may be inclined to go the route of buying First Edition copies of each of the titles (most of which are hardcovers), but this is more of a starter guide that points towards the best commonly available editions of each one (which generally means that they are purchasable at a reasonable price).

Must-Own Stephen King Books

If you’re building a core Stephen King collection, it’s a must to start with the classics (Carrie, Firestarter, The Dead Zone), the series (The Dark Tower, The Bill Hodges Trilogy), and the epics (The Stand, IT). The novella collections are special, as are most of his short story omnibi.

• Carrie (1974) – Hardcover
• Salem's Lot (1975) – Hardcover
• The Shining (1977) – Hardcover
• Rage (1977)/The Long Walk (1979)/Roadwork (1981)/The Running Man (1982) – Hardcover (Out Of Print)
• Night Shift (1978) – Hardcover
• The Stand (1978) – Hardcover
• The Dead Zone (1979) – Hardcover
• Firestarter (1980) – Hardcover
• Danse Macabre (1981) – Hardcover
• Cujo (1981) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982) – Hardcover
• Different Seasons (1982) – Hardcover
• Christine (1983) – Hardcover
• Pet Sematary (1983) – Hardcover
• The Talisman (1984) – Hardcover
• Skeleton Crew (1985) – Hardcover
• IT (1986) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower II: The Drawing Of The Three (1987) – Hardcover
• Misery (1987) – Hardcover
• The Dark Half (1989) – Hardcover
• Four Past Midnight (1990) – Hardcover
• Needful Things (1991) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991) – Hardcover
• Gerald's Game (1992) – Hardcover
• Dolores Claiborne (1992) – Hardcover
• Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993) – Hardcover
• The Green Mile (1996) – Hardcover
• Desperation (1996) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997) – Hardcover
• The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) – Hardcover
• On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (2000) – Hardcover
• Black House (2001) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004) – Hardcover
• Lisey's Story (2006) – Hardcover
• Under The Dome (2009) – Hardcover
• Full Dark, No Stars (2010) – Hardcover
• 11.22.63 (2011) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower: The Wind Through The Keyhole (2012) – Hardcover
• Doctor Sleep (2013) – Hardcover
• Mr. Mercedes (2014) – Hardcover
• Revival (2014) – Hardcover
• Finders Keepers (2015) – Hardcover
• End Of Watch (2016) – Hardcover
• Gwendy's Button Box (2017) – Hardcover
• The Outsider (2018) – Hardcover
• If It Bleeds (2020) – Hardcover
• Later (2021) – Paperback
• Billy Summers (2021) – Hardcover
• Gwendy’s Final Task (2022) – Hardcover
• Fairy Tale (2022) – Hardcover
• Holly (2023) - Hardcover
• You Like It Darker (2024) - Hardcover

Worth Checking Out

Once you have the essentials, you can expand from there. A number of these are great books – they just don’t have quite the same legacy as the best known titles in the Stephen King library. Some of them are also… bad (we’re being honest today).

• Cycle Of The Werewolf (1983) – Paperback
• Thinner (1984) – Hardcover
• The Eyes Of The Dragon (1984) – Hardcover
• The Tommyknockers (1987) – Hardcover
• Insomnia (1994) – Hardcover
• Rose Madder (1995) – Hardcover
• The Regulators (1996) – Hardcover
• Bag Of Bones (1998) – Hardcover
• Hearts In Atlantis (1999) – Hardcover
• Dreamcatcher (2001) – Hardcover
• Everything's Eventual (2002) – Hardcover
• From A Buick 8 (2002) – Hardcover
• The Colorado Kid (2005) – Paperback
• Cell (2006) – Hardcover
• Blaze (2007) – Hardcover
• Duma Key (2008) – Hardcover
• Just After Sunset (2008) – Hardcover
• Joyland (2013) – Hardcover
• The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams (2015) – Hardcover
• Sleeping Beauties (2017) – Hardcover
• Elevation (2018) – Hardcover
• The Institute (2019) – Hardcover

Optional

You may not feel that you need a coffee table book with Stephen King discussing the creepiness and legacy of gargoyles, but if you’re a completist, you’ll want to have these titles in your collection.They do make for nice additions to any Stephen King library.

• Nightmares In The Sky (1988) – Hardcover
• I Shudder At Your Touch (1991) – Hardcover (Note: Features the story “The Revelations Of Becka Paulson, which isn’t published in any other hardcover)
• Storm Of The Century (1999) – Hardcover
• Secret Windows: Essays And Fiction On The Craft Of Writing (2000) – Hardcover
• Faithful (2004) – Hardcover
• Blockade Billy (2010) – Hardcover
• Hearts In Suspension (2016) – Hardcover
• Flight Or Fright (2018) – Hardcover

Stephen King Movie Adaptations

Stephen King’s relationship with Hollywood is just about as long as his history as a published novelist, with Brian Da Palma’s Carrie having been released just two years after the novel it’s based on was first published. The author has an awesome big screen legacy, and thus there are a large number of titles to populate a collection.

Must-Own Stephen King Movies

Not only have some great movies been made based on Stephen King books, but there are some downright iconic ones too – and it’s primarily those titles we are calling essential for any collection. Some titles are considered among the best horror movies of all time… and considered among the best movies of all time period:

• Carrie (1976) – Collector’s Edition 4K UHD
• The Shining (1980) – 4K UHD
• Creepshow (1982) – Collector’s Edition 4K UHD
• Cujo (1983) – 4K UHD
• The Dead Zone (1983) – Collector's Edition 4K UHD
• Christine (1983) – 4K UHD
• Children Of The Corn (1984) – Special Edition 4K UHD
• Firestarter (1984) – Collector’s Edition Blu-ray
• Silver Bullet (1985) – Collector’s Edition 4K UHD
• Stand By Me (1986) – 4K UHD
• Maximum Overdrive (1986) – Blu-ray
• Pet Sematary (1989) – 4K UHD
• Misery (1990) – 4K UHD
• Tales From The Darkside: The Movie (1990) – Collector’s Edition 4K UHD
• Needful Things (1993) – 4K UHD
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – 4K UHD
• Dolores Claiborne (1995) – Blu-ray
• The Green Mile (1999) – 4K UHD
• The Mist (2007) – Collector's Edition 4K UHD
• IT (2017) – 4K UHD
• IT Chapter Two (2019) – 4K UHD
• Doctor Sleep (2019) – 4K UHD
• The Boogeyman (2023) – Blu-ray

Worth Checking Out

These Stephen King movies aren’t quite up to the high standard set by the brilliant adaptations above, and in some cases more liberties are taken with the source material, but there’s still plenty of good stuff, including a few solid anthology films.

• Cat's Eye (1985) – 4K UHD
• Creepshow 2 (1987) – Special Edition Blu-ray
• The Running Man (1987) – 4K UHD
• Sleepwalkers (1992) – Collector’s Edition Blu-ray
• The Dark Half (1993) – Blu-ray (Out Of Print)
• The Mangler (1995) – Blu-ray
• The Night Flier (1998) – DVD
• Apt Pupil (1998) – DVD
• Hearts In Atlantis (2001) – DVD
• 1408 (2007) – Blu-ray
• A Good Marriage (2014) – Blu-ray
• Pet Sematary (2019) – 4K UHD
• Firestarter (2022) – Blu-ray
• Pet Sematary: Bloodlines – 4K UHD

Optional

It’s tricky to recommend these Stephen King movies because they ride so low on the quality scale, but they exist for you to get if you’re a completist.

• Graveyard Shift (1990) – Blu-ray
• Thinner (1996) – Collector's Edition Blu-ray
• Carrie (2013) – Collector's Edition 4K UHD
• Dreamcatcher (2003) – Blu-ray
• Secret Window (2004) – Blu-ray
• Dolan's Cadillac (2009) – Blu-ray
• Riding The Bullet (2004) – DVD
• Mercy (2014) – DVD
• Cell (2016) – Blu-ray
• The Dark Tower (2017) – 4K UHD

Stephen King TV Adaptations

A huge part of what makes Stephen King’s books so great is their attention to detail – and while this typically means that the tomes wind up getting pretty damn heavy, it’s also an element of his style that has led to there being a great relationship between King and the TV world. These adaptations provide the runtime real estate that regularly let adaptations be remarkably faithful to their respective source material.

Must-Own Stephen King TV Adaptations

If you’re looking for the cream of the crop material when it comes to Stephen King’s history on the small screen, you’ll find it below. Admittedly the legacy isn’t quite as iconic as the theatrical material, but we’ve still seen some fantastic adaptations for the small screen.

• Salem's Lot (1979) – Blu-ray
• It (1990) – Blu-ray
• The Stand (1994) – Blu-ray
• The Langoliers (1995) – DVD
• The Shining (1997) – Blu-ray
• Storm Of The Century (1999) – DVD (Based on original script by Stephen King)
• The Dead Zone (2002) – DVD (Complete Series)
• Kingdom Hospital (2004) – DVD
• Salem's Lot (2004) – DVD (Best version in Triple Terror Collection)
• Nightmares & Dreamscapes (2006) – DVD
• Haven (2010) – DVD (Complete Series) (Note: Each season was released on Blu-rays, but copies of Season 4, Season 5, and Season 5.1 can be difficult to find)
• Under The Dome (2013) – Blu-ray (Season 1) & Blu-ray (Season 2) & Blu-ray (Season 3)
• 11.22.63 (2016) – Blu-ray
• Mr. Mercedes (2017) – Blu-ray (Note: Region-Free Complete Series)
• Castle Rock (2018) – 4K UHD (Season 1) & Blu-ray (Season 2)
• The Outsider (2020) – Blu-ray (Season 1)
• The Stand (2020) – Blu-ray (Complete Limited Series)
• Chapelwaite (2021) Blu-ray (Note: This a Region Free release from Australia)

Worth Checking Out

Quality-wise, these TV adaptations range between “middle of the road” and “downright awful. Some of them definitely have their redeeming qualities, and will certainly be of interest to any Stephen King collector who is also a completist.

• Sometimes They Come Back (1991) – Blu-ray
• Golden Years (1991) – DVD (Based on original script by Stephen King)
• The Tommyknockers (1993) – DVD
• Quicksilver Highway (1997) – DVD
• Trucks (1997) – DVD
• Rose Red (2002) – DVD (Based on original script by Stephen King)
• Carrie (2002) – Blu-ray (Out Of Print)
• Desperation (2006) – DVD
• Children Of The Corn (2009) – Blu-ray
• Bag Of Bones (2011) – DVD
• Big Driver (2014) – DVD

Optional

If you’re looking to get absolutely every Stephen King adaptation, including the anthology shows that turned the author’s works into single episodes, this section is for you:

• The Twilight Zone (1985) – DVD (Season 1) (Note: Episode “Gramma” based on the Stephen King story of the same name)
• Tales From The Darkside (1984) – DVD (Season 1) (Note: Episode “Word Processor Of The Gods” based on the Stephen King story of the same name) & DVD (Season 4) (Note: Stephen King wrote the episode “Sorry, Right Number”)
• Monsters (1988) - DVD (Complete Series) (Note: Out Of Print, Season 3 Episode “The Moving Finger” based on the Stephen King story of the same name)
• The Outer Limits (1997) – DVD (Season 3) (Note: Out Of Print; Episode “The Revelations Of ‘Becka Paulson” based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name)
• The X-Files (1998) – Blu-ray (Season 5) (Note: Stephen King wrote the episode “Chinga”)
• Creepshow (2019) – Blu-ray (Season 1 - Episode “Gray Matter” based on the Stephen King story of the same name) & Blu-ray (Season 2 - which includes the "Creepshow Animated Special," based on the Stephen King story “Survivor Type”)

As noted up top, there are always more Stephen King books being written and adaptations being made, so any collection of the author’s works is a fluid collection – but we’ll keep this list updated with all of the latest releases as they become available. For the latest news about new developments in the world of King physical media, check out my weekly column The King Beat, which goes live here on CinemaBlend every Thursday.

Note: This feature purposefully does not include sequels that are not based on pre-existing Stephen King works or written by King himself (i.e. the Children of the Corn sequels, Pet Sematary 2, The Rage: Carrie 2, etc.).

Additionally, Gerald's Game, In The Tall Grass, 1922, and Mr. Harrigan's Phone are notably absent from this list because they are not currently available on home video, and can only be watched on Netflix. The same is true for the series Lisey’s Story, which is an Apple TV+ exclusive.

Jurassic World Dominion may not have garnered the critical acclaim fans might have hoped for (our own Eric Eisenberg called it “a slog of a film”), but that certainly didn’t keep them away from the theater this weekend. The sequel was able to — as expected — bump Top Gun: Maverick out of the top spot at the box office. The dinosaur flick, which partners the Jurassic Park legacy actors with World’s Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, pulled in $143.4 million domestically over the weekend, as the Tom Cruise sequel picked up another cool $50 million to secure the silver medal and get closer to a record. 

Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum reprised their characters for the Colin Trevorrow blockbuster, and the runway was cleared for Jurassic World Dominion to battle it out with Top Gun: Maverick. In promising news for the film industry, fans showed up for both movies, not just domestically either, as both scored big in international ticket sales as well. Check out this weekend’s full Top 10 (via The Numbers) below, then join me after to break it all down! 

Critical Reception Didn’t Hurt Jurassic World Dominion, Domestically Or Internationally 

Jurassic World Dominion’s box office domination wasn’t unexpected, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted, either. The trilogy’s presumed final installment scored just 30% on Rotten Tomatoes’ critical reviews (though its audience score was a much more generous 79%). And going up against Tom Cruise’s fighter pilot sequel, which by comparison scored a 97% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes (99% audience score), there could have been cause for concern. However, the legacyquel’s $143.4 million debut brought in more than Top Gun: Maverick’s $124 million Friday-Sunday earnings, as well as the $128.5 million launch of The Batman. 

The MCU still holds top box office honors so far for 2022, however, with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness earning slightly more than Dominion with its $185 million weekend opening last month.

The threequel's opening weekend numbers are comparable to its predecessor, as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, made $148 million on its opening weekend back in 2018 (pre-COVID). The first movie in the World series drew $209 million in its first weekend domestically. The latest blockbuster is also off to a good start internationally, drawing $389.1 million over the past few days, per Deadline.

Top Gun: Maverick Is Set To Become Tom Cruise's Biggest Blockbuster Of All Time

It may have fallen to No. 2 on the domestic box office charts this week but, with a drop of only 44% from its second week, Top Gun: Maverick is still going strong and breaking records along the way. The sequel had the best opening weekend preview in the history of Paramount, and it gave Tom Cruise is best opening weekend ever. On top of that, it was also the biggest Memorial Day weekend opener since Pirates of the Caribbean: A World’s End, and it gave the actor a No. 1 movie at the box office for his fifth-straight decade, ranging all the way back to the original Top Gun, which released in 1986. 

On top of all that, Maverick is set to become the biggest movie of Tom Cruise’s career, as international box office numbers hit $747 million after this weekend, Deadline reported, putting it easily within reach of Cruise's highest grossing movie to date — Mission: Impossible - Fallout.That film earned $787.2 million globally in 2018. Will Top Gun be able to cross that threshold in just one more week?

The Bad Guys Continues To Hold On Ahead Of Pixar's Lightyear Premiere

With no other new releases this week, there were few surprises in the rest of the Top 10. Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Lost City continue to hang on in the rankings after an impressive 12 weeks. The Bad Guys, as well, continues an impressive streak, amassing $91.5 million after eight weeks in theaters. 

The Universal animated film starring Sam Rockwell has nearly had the family-friendly market to itself — along with Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which is hanging on, as well, 10 weeks since its premiere — as audiences await the release of Lightyear on Friday, June 17. The Toy Story origin tale will see Chris Evans take over the voice acting duties from Tim Allen, as the movie is said to be the story of the space ranger that the toy is based on. Expectations are high for Pixar's return to the theater, even if so much of the critical response has been centered around Sox, Buzz's robotic cat companion.

Lightyear is likely to push The Bad Guys and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 down, as the younger audience and their parents rush to see the latest installment in the beloved franchise. But how will the rated-PG movie compete with the slightly more mature movies that are dominating the box office this week? Come back next week to find out! Also be sure to check out our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to see what films are coming soon to theaters!

Tom Cruise is unquestionably one of the biggest movie stars of all time, but one career milestone that has evaded him has been making a movie with a $100 million opening weekend. The Mission: Impossible movies are obviously popular, but the the biggest among them is Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which made $61.2 million in its first three days back in 2018, and his biggest non-franchise film, Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, began its theatrical run by making $64.9 million.

Now, however, the actor can check that particular item off his To-Do List. Since premiering in theaters on Thursday night, Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick has put up spectacular numbers, and its now on track to be Tom Cruise's biggest hit ever. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis.

Top Gun: Maverick Has The Third Biggest Opening Weekend Of 2022 Thus Far

Your eyes do not deceive you. Top Gun: Maverick made twice as much money as Mission: Impossible - Fallout did in the same amount of time. The new blockbuster is only the third feature to bring in nine-figures in ticket sales thus far in 2022, with the opening weekend total ranking behind only Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (which earned $187 million in its first Friday-to-Sunday at the start of this month) and Matt Reeves' The Batman (which made $134 million when it began its theatrical run in early March).

When you compare the number to the performance of Tony Scott's original (not accounting for inflation, of course), the results are rather comical. The original Top Gun, which hit theaters in 1986 and was a huge hit, made just $8.2 million in its first weekend, playing in 1,028 theaters – according to The Numbers. It was definitely a slow start for what it would ultimately do, as it ended up staying in theaters for eight months after its released domestically, its global box office total (including re-releases) stands at $357.5 million. 

There's obviously no questioning the original Top Gun's success, but all signs point to Top Gun: Maverick blowing it out of the sky by the time it is done playing on the big screen. The question mark in the equation is how the film will perform internationally. If it's able to match its predecessor and achieve something close to a 1:1 ratio between domestic and overseas grosses, there exists a possibility that the movie could make north of $700 million.

Those who have been anticipating the release of Top Gun: Maverick will note that we've had to wait an extra long time for this movie's release. In early March 2020, Paramount had the blockbuster scheduled to come out on June 24, 2020... but then the pandemic started. Tom Cruise insisted that the film go to theaters and not streaming, and because he got his wish, fans have spent an extra two years chomping at the bit for it.

In that sense, the film's success isn't terribly surprising – plus there are a number of other factors that suggested that the movie would be a hit. Positive buzz has been swirling since social media reactions to the movie arrived online back in late April, and only more positivity came pouring out when Top Gun: Maverick reviews were published in mid-May. There has been a lot of excitement developing for this one, and that's now reflected in the opening weekend ticket sales.

The big bonus? This weekend isn't over. It's not hard to imagine that a fair number of people will spend the Memorial Day holiday tomorrow heading to their local cinema to check out a new movie, and it's a fair bet that a lot of them are going to be going to see Tom Cruise fly jets in Top Gun: Maverick.

Despite Heavy Competition, The Bob's Burgers Movie Still Brings In Customers

In this day and age, when two big titles open against each other during the same weekend and one of them makes north of $100 million, that usually means that the other one is left picking of scraps. That, however, is not the narrative that's in play for Loren Bouchard and Bernard Derriman's The Bob's Burgers Movie. Based on the popular, long-running Fox animated sitcom, the film made $12.6 million in an impressive showing.

That's obviously not much of a number when you put it next to the earnings of Top Gun: Maverick, and it doesn't compare favorably to the opening weekend of David Silverman's The Simpsons Movie (which made $74 million in 2007), but it's a modest success. That haul is the sixteenth biggest Friday-to-Sunday total earned by any movie domestically thus far in 2022, as it opened bigger than Robert Eggers' The Northman, Roland Emmerich's Moonfall, and Michael Bay's Ambulance.

The Bob's Burgers Movie is another title that has earned positive responses from critics, and it's earned an "A" grade from CinemaScore survey-takers, and it may end up being a title that sticks around in the bottom half of the Top 10 for a good chunk of the summer season.

Channing Tatum And Sandra Bullock Can Celebrate, As The Lost City Crosses $100 Million Domestically

Speaking of movies that have hung around in the bottom half of the Top 10, Adam and Aaron Nee's The Lost City should inspire some champagne popping of its own at Paramount Pictures while the studio celebrates the success of Top Gun: Maverick. The romantic comedy starring Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock hung on to ninth place this weekend, but what's important is that the $1.8 million that it earned has pushed the film's domestic total over $100 million. It's made $174.8 million internationally thus far.

For Channing Tatum, The Lost City is the thirteenth film to earn nine figures in the United States and Canada. For Sandra Bullock, it's number eleven.

Looking ahead to next week, the runway looks clear for Top Gun: Maverick to dominate once again, as the biggest new features in wide theatrical release will be David Cronenberg's Crimes Of The Future, and Chloe Okuno's Sundance horror film Watcher starring Maika Monroe. Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how the Top 10 gets shaken up, and check out our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to get a preview of all the big titles set to come out in the weeks and months ahead.

One of the biggest issues facing movie theaters right now is audience diversification. Clearly the demographics targeted by major superhero blockbusters are buying tickets en masse, but the key to rebuilding the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic is getting people of all ages to start attending screenings. And there is good news: a few weeks ago, Pierre Perifel's The Bad Guys proved to be a winner bringing pre-teens into multiplexes, and now Simon Curtis' Downton Abbey: A New Era has successfully lured older audiences back to the big screen.

Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (unsurprisingly) remains champion at the domestic box office, but there are some interesting numbers to scope out in the Top 10. Check out the chart below, and join me after for analysis!

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness Wins Again As It Passes A Major Milestone At The International Box Office

If you've been even vaguely paying attention to goings-on in the movie world the past 14 years, it won't exactly knock you for a loop to learn that the latest feature release from the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to dominate at the box office. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness got off to a phenomenal fast start at the beginning of May – setting a new high bar for 2022 opening weekends by earning $185 million – and the money has continued to pour in ever since.

Weekend-to-weekend, Doctor Strange 2 only dipped 49 percent in its third Friday-to-Sunday (according to The Numbers), and it has added $31.6 million more to its impressive domestic total. To date, the movie has made $342.1 million in the United States and Canada, meaning that it is now just $27.2 million away from surpassing the total made by Matt Reeves' The Batman (the DC blockbuster has made $369.3 million to date).

The bigger picture only becomes rosier for Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness when one looks at what the film has managed to accomplish internationally. More than 50 percent of the movie's global box office grosses have come from overseas, and the totals from the last three days have pushed the Marvel feature over $800 million worldwide. It is the first 2022 title to reach that milestone, as the aforementioned The Batman concluded its theatrical run by making $768 million).

So how do these new numbers change Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness' positioning in the box office rankings of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies? The answer is "significantly."

The Sam Raimi film has now made more money than what Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Homecoming earned in 2017 during its big screen run in the U.S. and Canada, and it is now the twelfth highest grossing title domestically. It's in 14th place on the worldwide chart, but it has outgrossed big hits including James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy and Joe and Anthony Russo's Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

It's also very likely that Doctor Strange 2 will ultimately become the most successful film that Sam Raimi has ever made. The new blockbuster has not yet outgrossed 2007's Spider-Man 3 (which made $894.9 million) or the original Spider-Man from 2002 ($821.7 million), but it actually has made more than 2004's Spider-Man 2 ($794.7 million).

There is definitely some significant box office competition for the Marvel Cinematic Universe title coming up in the form of Joseph Kosinski's much-hyped Top Gun: Maverick and Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World: Dominion, but there is expectation that the comic book movie will continue to see money rolling in.

Downton Abbey: A New Era Doesn't Outgross Its Predecessor, But Has An Impressive Showing

Since 2020, getting older audiences to go to the movies has proven to be a tricky proposition – one of the major factors being the dangers of COVID-19. Based on the opening weekend numbers for Downton Abbey: A New Era, it seems that the new movie had the pull it needed to get that key demographic into theaters. The film has made $16 million domestically since Friday, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, nearly half of people who have bought tickets are 55 or older.

Admittedly the numbers don't look quite as big when you consider the fact that Simon Curtis' first Downton Abbey movie made $31 million in its first three days of release in the United States and Canada, but that was back in 2019 when global circumstances were quite different. The $16 million it made ranks as the 12th best opening weekend of 2022 so far – surpassing the $12.3 million made by Kenneth Branagh's Death On The Nile in its debut back in February (another title targeting older audiences).

Of course, while Downton Abbey: A New Era premiered domestically on Friday, it has been in release internationally for weeks now, and it has sold a lot of tickets. Again, it's not going to reach the heights of its predecessor (which made nearly $200 million before it was done playing on the big screen), but it has made a solid $51.7 million so far. The movie has a reported production budget of $40 million (per Deadline), so we'll have to wait and see how profitable it will ultimately be.

Alex Garland's Men Squeezes Into The Top Five, Pushing Out Fellow A24 Release Everything Everywhere All At Once

The only other new wide release this past weekend was Alex Garland's Men, which successfully landed in the domestic Top 5 making $3.3 million in its first three days.  Clearly its not an overwhelming blockbuster success... but then again, that's not really the history with Garland's past work either (2015's Ex Machina only made $237,264 in its opening, and 2018's Annihilation brought in $11.1 million). How it will perform in the long run will be interesting, as both of those previous titles ended up showing legs and making over $38 million worldwide.

The bar for Men's success is lower, as it clearly had a much smaller budget than the writer/director's previous releases, and it may stick around for a minute. A24 has had surprising success in the horror genre, and this film still has a shot to perpetuate that reputation.

Coming up this week, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will see its reign at the top of the domestic box office challenged by two new big titles: Top Gun: Maverick and Loren Bouchard and Bernard Derriman's The Bob's Burgers Movie. How will they shake up the Top 10? Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to find out, and get a look at the schedule ahead by checking out our 2022 Movie Release Calendar. 

When Jon Watts' Spider-Man: No Way Home had its second weekend in theaters last year, it unsurprisingly saw its numbers dip comparatively by 67 percent. While it was impressive that the Marvel movie made over $260 million in its opening weekend, there was little expectation that its second Friday-to-Sunday stretch would see the blockbuster add another nine-figure sum to its domestic total. 

That's key to keep in mind while looking at the latest box office income for Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, as while the film actually matched the last Spider-Man movie in second weekend percentage drop, its still well on its way to being considered one of Marvel Studios' biggest hits. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis!

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness Is Now The Second Biggest Domestic Hit Of 2022

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness had the second biggest box office opening since the start of the pandemic (and the eleventh biggest of all time), and in its sophomore weekend it has continued to rake in a ton of cash. The $61 million it has made in the last three days – via The Numbers – is about two-thirds of what it brought in from its first three days ($187.4 million), and added to some staggering totals. To date, the blockbuster has made $291.9 million domestically, and worldwide it is already more than halfway to making $1 billion with $613.1 million made in global tickets so far.

In the United States and Canada, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness hasn't quite made enough money to be called the biggest film of 2022 thus far, but I would expect that it will earn that title within the next couple of weeks. It has already outgrossed Jeff Fowler's Sonic The Hedgehog 2, which has made $175.7 million to date, but the Marvel film is still sitting behind Matt Reeves' The Batman, which is now on the home video market but made $369.2 million before it was done playing on the big screen .

The ranking relationship between Doctor Strange 2 and The Batman is mirrored on the worldwide box office chart. The latter made $760.8 million globally in theaters, and so the former needs to make a little less than $150 million to surpass it. There is no doubt that will happen.

Really the only chart where Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness doesn't look like a ridiculously massive hit thus far is when it is compared to the best of Marvel Studios since 2008. The movie may have banked over $600 million globally thus far, but that only makes it the 20th most successful Marvel Cinematic Universe release. It has now made more than Jon Favreau's Iron Man ($585.2 million) and Peyton Reed's Ant-Man ($518.9 million), but has done just 22 percent of the business that Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Endgame did back in 2019.

Doctor Strange 2 will obviously never make anywhere near as much as the Infinity Saga capstone film, but it will be interesting to see how high up the chart it will ultimately climb. By the time it was done playing in theaters, Spider-Man: No Way Home grossed $1.9 billion, and the Doctor Strange sequel won't ultimately put up numbers that big either, but it is conceivable that the blockbuster could enter into the Marvel Cinematic Universe's box office Top 10, taking the Number 10 spot from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's Captain Marvel (which made $1.1 billion worldwide in 2019)

The movie release schedule is most certainly working in favor of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness – at least domestically. Clearly Keith Thomas' Firestarter was no match for the Marvel movie (more on that in a second), and there aren't high expectations that Simon Curtis' Downton Abbey: A New Era will be stealing eyeballs from the blockbusters' main demographic. The next real big competition for the Doctor Strange follow-up isn't coming out until the end of the month in the form of Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick.

Firestarter Flames Out With Slow Start In Hybrid Release

The fact that Universal Pictures decided to release Firestarter both in theaters and on Peacock simultaneously suggests that the studio never had much confidence in the Stephen King adaptation, and admittedly we don't know how many people actually watched the movie because streaming numbers aren't publicly available. That being said, there is definitely not a lot to celebrate about the horror movie's performance on the big screen this weekend.

Playing on over 3,400 theaters nationwide, Firestarter only managed to gross $3.8 million. In the 19th weekend of 2022, that's figure represents the 24th biggest opening of the year, behind Ti West's X ($4.3 million) and D.J. Caruso's Redeeming Love ($3.5 million). Because of the streaming option that the studio made available, that's not a full representation of the film's viewership, but there aren't really many positive things to say about the numbers presented. The Stephen King movie was produced by Blumhouse for only $12 million (according to Deadline), so at the very least it won't be seen as one of the year's bigger flops.

Everything Everywhere All At Once Will Become A24's Biggest Hit Yet Domestically

To end this week's CinemaBlend box office column on a more positive note, I'll once again highlight the success of Daniels' Everything Everywhere All At Once, which continues to be one of the most exciting box office stories of the year. It continues to look unlikely that the movie will end up being called A24's biggest movie yet due to the fact that Ari Aster's Hereditary made $81.3 million worldwide in 2018, but very soon it looks like it will at least be able to lay claim to the title of Biggest Movie Domestically for the indie studio.

The $3.3 million that Everything Everywhere All At Once made in the last three days (good enough for fifth place) means that its domestic total is now up to $47.1 million, which is less than $3 million away from the total made by Ben and Josh Safdie's Uncut Gems three years ago. It's a safe bet that the movie will close that gap – possibly in the time before I write next week's box office column.

Speaking of A24, the studio's latest release – Alex Garland's Men – will be hitting theaters this Friday, May 20, along with the aforementioned Downton Abbey: A New Era. Be sure to head back here next Sunday to discover how the Top 10 is shaken up, and you can get a preview of the weeks ahead via our 2022 Movie Release Calendar.

Horror fans have been excited to check out this remake of the Stephen King adaptation of Firestarter. In the role made famous by Drew Barrymore back in 1984, Ryan Kiera Armstrong plays Charlie McGee, a young girl who develops pyrokinesis, forcing her and her father Andy (Zac Efron) to go on the run from government agents and bounty hunters. Critics screened Firestarter ahead of its online release, as it is now available for streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription. The movie also premiered in theaters on the same day, May 13.

Featuring Sydney Lemmon as Charlie’s mother, Kurtwood Smith as Dr. Joseph Wanless and Michael Greyeyes as bounty hunter John Rainbird, this R-rated reboot looked downright explosive in the trailer. Let’s take a look at what the reviews are saying to help you decide if this movie will be part of your Friday the 13th plans (or any day after, obviously). 

Let’s start with the CinemaBlend review of Firestarter. Eric Eisenberg rates the movie 4 stars out of 5, noting that the reboot changes quite a bit — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a story that’s been around more than four decades — but still keeps the important parts. The original movie staying fairly loyal to the source material allows this movie to make changes that should surprise even die-hard Stephen King fans:

Not all of the critics are as pleased. Frank Schek of THR says this remake is better than the original, but just barely. He calls it competent but uninspired and says it feels more like a TV movie or the pilot for a streaming series.

Carla Hay of Culture Mix also isn’t a fan of Firestarter — the remake or the original — but admits the 2022 version includes better acting. This critic is particularly thrown off by the ending, which strays from both the book and 1984 film in a way she doesn’t think makes sense:

Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting rates the movie 2 skulls out of 5, calling Firestarter severely underdeveloped. The first half builds the characters and sets the stakes, but the second half feels rushed and haphazard so that none of the emotional payoff lands, this review argues. That’s not to say there aren’t some positives to be found:

Owen Gleiberman of Variety says Drew Barrymore’s Firestarter was one of Stephen King’s worst adaptations, and this reboot is no improvement:

While critics have some positive things to say about the acting and some of the liberties taken with the source material, their reviews are lukewarm toward this reboot. However, moviegoers— especially fans of horror and Stephen King — should feel free to check the movie out and judge for themselves! Whether you make it a night at the theater, or grab the microwave popcorn to stream it on Peacock, Firestarter is out now. You can also see what other upcoming Stephen King book-to-screen adaptations are in the works, and check out our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to see what else is coming soon to theaters.

There have been dozens of Stephen King adaptations released over the years, with many of the horror and literary icon’s best movies available to stream right now. And now it looks like that list is just a tad bit longer, as the long-awaited Firestarter remake is available to stream online. If you have been meaning to check out the long-in-the-works remake starring Zac Efron as a young father who attempts to protect his pyrokinetic daughter from a nefarious government agency, the time has finally come and you have to wait no more. 

Below is a break down of everything there is to know about how to watch Firestarter streaming as well as some information on its theatrical run, and much, much more about what looks to be one of the scariest 2022 movie releases so far.

Where Is Firestarter Streaming?

As of May 13, 2022 (Friday the 13th), anyone with an active Peacock premium subscription can watch Firestarter streaming, as the latest Stephen King adaptation has been added to the platform’s incredible library of horror movies, shows, and other specials. 

And, with Firestarter being one of most anticipated releases by Universal Pictures (which falls under the same corporate umbrella as Peacock) so far this year, you’ll probably see the movie plastered all over the streaming service’s homepage and list of recommendations. To save you some time and a few clicks, though, we’ve provided a direct link to the movie below:

Stream Firestarter on Peacock.

Firestarter Is Also Playing In Movie Theaters

Don’t have Peacock or prefer to watch horror movies on the big screen? Well, you’re in for some good news, as Firestarter is also playing in theaters across the United States. Universal Pictures announced that the movie would be released theatrically and on Peacock with the debut of the explosive and thrilling trailer back in February. This news came just a few weeks after it was revealed that Firestarter would carry an R-rating during its theatrical run, which is good news for longtime fans of Stephen King’s book-to-movie adaptations.

Because movie times differ by location, you’ll probably want to check your local listings for all the details about when you can watch Firestarter at your local movie house.

If You’ve Already Watched Firestarter…

In the event you have already watched Firestarter streaming on Peacock or on the silver screen, don’t worry, because we have plenty of great coverage about the movie that will only get better in the coming days. There are pieces about the Firestarter cast (including breakout star Ryan Kiera Armstrong), interviews with the actors, and even a breakdown of Zac Efron’s best movies and TV shows.

If you want to check out how the original 1984 version of Firestarter went from being one of Stephen King’s best books to one of his most iconic film adaptations, we’ve got you covered there as well.

Firestarter is currently streaming on Peacock and showing in theaters nationwide. There is more to follow as there are several upcoming Stephen King adaptations slated to be released later in 2022 and for many years to come.

Remakes are funny things. It’s a word that a lot of cinephiles bridle against, as what flashes to mind is the idea that executives are going to recreate a preexisting movie with simply a shiny new coat of paint, merely hoping to cash in on a recognizable title. It inspires new arguments for the patently wrong misconception that “Hollywood doesn’t make original films anymore.” But that perception is a fallacy. Obviously there are a lot of bad, pointless, and creatively bankrupt remakes – but there are also those that that have the capacity to render an original take as an asset instead of a liability.

Keith Thomas’ Firestarter is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Stephen King, but it’s not the first. In 1984, four years after the book was originally published, director Mark L. Lester brought the story to the big screen featuring an all-star cast including Drew Barrymore, George C. Scott, Art Carney, Freddie Jones, Louise Fletcher and Martin Sheen, and it’s notably one of the more faithful film versions of King’s works. This turns out to be something that plays to the remake’s advantage, however, as its existence gives the new movie liberty to make different choices with the source material, and it allows the film to have the soul of the original story while also delivering surprises even (and perhaps especially) die-hard Stephen King fans can enjoy.

While both the novel and the original movie have a relatively firm structure, with the first half featuring the principal characters on the run and the second half finding them imprisoned in a government research lab, the new film loosens that up. In doing so, it allows the audience to see more of the father-daughter relationship that is at the heart of the narrative.

Andy McGee (Zac Efron) and his wife Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) are introduced as being a couple that has been living on the run ever since the birth of their daughter, Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). As college students, they met while participating in a test trial for a drug called Lot 6, and while most of their fellow volunteers didn’t survive the experiment, Andy walked away with telepathy and the ability to mentally command people, and Vicky became a telekinetic. Charlie is also gifted, being able to set fires with her mind, and her parents have spent years trying to prevent her from a fate as a government lab rat or a weapon.

When an explosive accident at Charlie’s school gets the McGees back on the radar of the Department of Scientific Intelligence (known in shorthand as The Shop), Captain Jane Hollister (Gloria Reuben) orders a capture mission, and to pull it off she activates Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes) – a hired gun who is also the product of experimentation by The Shop.

Firestarter changes a number of things from Stephen King's book, but mostly in smart ways.

Reading Stephen King’s book, it never made a whole lot of sense to me as to why The Shop would only loosely monitor the McGee family instead of always trying to contain them – and that’s just one of the things that this adaptation does well with the freedom to move away from the source material. Likewise, there is the a great deal more complexity added to Rainbird.

This is a thrilling character on the page because he is a homicidal lunatic, and there is always natural tension that is evoked because you never know his next move, but he’s also fairly one dimensional. Not only does Keith Thomas’ movie bring him into the action much earlier, having him be the first to move in after Charlie rather than being a mop-up guy, but his showdowns with the McGees are much more cinematic, and there are shades of grey instead of black-and-white villainy.

Also expanded is the role Vicky plays (she’s actually dead at the start of Stephen King’s novel), and it’s a well utilized character as she adds an important perspective in the ensemble. Every player in the piece has their own answer to the question, “What do we do about Charlie?” Vicky believes that her daughter needs to learn how to control her powers, while Andy advocates that she bottles them up. Captain Hollister essentially sees her as the key to unlocking the next step in human evolution, but Dr. Wanless (Kurtwood Smith) – the doctor who oversaw the Lot 6 experiments for The Shop – believes she needs to be killed before she is able to personally ignite nuclear-level destruction. Rainbird is trained to see her as a target, but he also has kinship with her.

Ryan Kiera Armstrong and Zac Efron make a great father/daughter pair in Firestarter.

Not lost in these changes is the bond between Andy and Charlie, as circumstances challenge Andy’s perspective on what’s right for Charlie, and the journey sees the girl coming into her own and learning how to control her powers. Ryan Kiera Armstrong proves to be an impressive find (and her reputation grows within the world of Stephen King adaptations, her resume including the scariest scene in Andy Muschietti’s IT Chapter Two). She is capable of being both the portrait of innocence at the start – inadvertently setting fires and hurting the people she loves – but by the end, she is a force to be reckoned with, and sells every ounce of it.  

Zac Efron successfully delivers one of his most mature turns to date, and in addition to his paternal performance, he gets his own moments of creepy sci-fi. He sells his ability to “push” people with a neck crack and a stare, and it leaves him with the freaky side effect of crying blood (quite different than the simple nosebleeds in the book).

Firestarter has a stellar score to go along with its exciting psychic action.

Bloody tears is just one of the many great aesthetic touches that Keith Thomas and his crew deliver with Firestarter. The title comes with inherent promises of flame-centric action, and the film delivers – albeit not always in the most audience-friendly ways. This is particularly true in the third act climax, which has Charlie on a determined mission (though I can’t say much more about that without giving away plot details). Even beyond the fires, there is some exciting psychic action, such as Vicky using her rusty powers in a life-threatening showdown and a flashback depicting how Andy responded when he first discovered that his newborn daughter was in danger.

Deserving its own special mention is the score from John and Cody Carpenter and Daniel A. Davies. The Christine director has some interesting history with Firestarter’s source material, as he was going to direct an adaptation before the bottom fell out of the project – but that’s just a cool Easter egg behind what is an arresting and instantly recognizable synth sound that improves every scene in which its featured. It’s a modern story that gets a throwback feel from the music, and it’s a fantastic touch.

Firestarter doesn’t rank among the all-time best Stephen King adaptations, but it is an entertaining, well-made, and cinematic interpretation of the book that is far better than its predecessor. It won’t change the reputation of remakes, but can be remembered as an example of when they go right.

John Carpenter is a significant part of Stephen King adaptation history, as 1983’s Christine remains one of the best King movies of all time – but had things gone differently, it would have been a different novel from the beloved author that the director brought to the big screen. The filmmaker was initially going to make a big screen version of the 1980 book Firestarter, but he ran into two issues: the version he was concocting would have cost $20 million to make, and he was coming off of The Thing, which was a big box office flop. That project fell apart (leaving Mark L. Lester to develop the version released in 1984), but it was shortly thereafter that Carpenter got his hands on a manuscript of Christine.

In that sense, his involvement with the brand new version of Firestarter is him coming full circle. While he’s not directing the movie, he has composed the score along with his son, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel A. Davies. It’s a cool Easter egg for Stephen King fans – so I naturally felt compelled to ask director Keith Thomas about John Carpenter’s history with the source material when I interviewed him late last month during the film’s virtual press day.

As captured in the video at the top of this article, I asked Thomas if he talked with John Carpenter at all about the original version of Firestarter that he was going to make back in the early 1980s. The director explained that he briefly considered asking if there was any music Carpenter had planned for the project before it got scrapped… but it never actually ended up being a part of the conversations that he had with the legendary filmmaker. Said Thomas,

Because it’s not something Keith Thomas ever brought up, it’s unclear if John Carpenter did use any score ideas from his first go-round with the source material – but either way what he has created is fantastic. You can listen to the end titles track from the new Firestarter, which has been released by Back Lot Music on YouTube.

Continuing, Keith Thomas discussed what it was like working with John Carpenter, who has spent most of his career as a composer only making scores for films he himself has directed (the notable exceptions being Rick Rosenthal’s Halloween II, Tommy Lee Wallace’s Halloween III: Season Of The Witch, and David Gordon Green’s Halloween). The Firestarter director commended Carpenter for his dedication, and added that Carpenter’s different relationship with the movie had an impact on the way he worked:

Unsurprisingly, Keith Thomas is a big fan of John Carpenter’s, and he makes it sound like the scoring sessions for Firestarter were basically a surreal experience. He added,

Fans will be able to listen to John Carpenter’s full Firestarter soundtrack when the movie premieres this weekend, set to both hit theaters and stream exclusively on Peacock. The film stars Zac Efron, Sydney Lemmon, Gloria Reuben, Michael Greyeyes, Kurtwood Smith, and Ryan Kiera Armstrong (who thinks she’d do quite well in a rematch with Pennywise The Clown from IT). You can also pre-order the soundtrack now and keep track of all Stephen King adaptations in development with our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

Of the many directors who have taken the helm of a Stephen King movie over the years, a surprising number of them haven’t been able to settle with making just one. Not counting television productions, seven different filmmakers have made at least two King films – the list including George A. Romero, Lewis Teague, Rob Reiner, Mick Garris, Frank Darabont, Andy Muschietti, and Mike Flanagan. That’s one hell of a group, and if he were given the chance, Firestarter’ Keith Thomas would definitely be game to join up.

I interviewed Thomas late last month during the virtual press day for Firestarter, and in addition to talking about John Carpenter’s score and changes from the source material, I also asked about his prospective future making Stephen King adaptations. As captured in the video above, I put to the director the challenge to pick another King movie to make – and while he briefly considered one of many of the author’s brilliant short stories, he ultimately selected the 1983 book Cycle Of The Werewolf. Said Thomas,

When Keith Thomas says that his movie wouldn’t be a remake, that’s because Cycle Of The Werewolf has already been adapted. In 1985, director Dan Attias made the movie Silver Bullet, which was based on a screenplay that Stephen King wrote himself. The film stars Corey Haim as werewolf hunting hero Marty Coslaw, and Gary Busey is the biggest name in the supporting cast – playing Marty’s alcoholic-but-supportive uncle.

The catch that comes with Silver Bullet is that it’s not a super faithful to the source material. Cycle Of The Werewolf was originally supposed to be a calendar full of short stories, and Stephen King got a bit carried away – instead writing a book with 12 chapters corresponding to the months of the year (every month has a full moon, and each chapter describes a new werewolf attack). Silver Bullet doesn’t reflect that structure and invents a lot of material.

What particularly draws Keith Thomas to the material is not just Stephen King’s story about a small Maine town plagued by a lycanthrope, but also the artwork that was designed for Cycle Of The Werewolf. King reteamed with Creepshow illustrator Bernie Wrightson to do some savage and brilliant drawings for the book, and Thomas wants to bring Wrightson’s art to the big screen:

We’ll just have to wait to see what the future holds.

First things first, Firestarter is set to hit theaters this Friday, and it will also be available to stream on Peacock. Written by screenwriter Scott Teems, the movie has a brilliant cast including Zac Efron, Sydney Lemmon, Gloria Reuben, Michael Greyeyes, Kurtwood Smith, and Ryan Kiera Armstrong. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more from my interviews with the cast and filmmakers, and learn all about the other Stephen King adaptations check out our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

Ryan Kiera Armstrong is only 12 years old, but already she is well on her way to becoming a veteran of Stephen King movies. This week audiences will get to see her play Charlie McGee in the new remake of Firestarter, but just a few years ago fans will remember that she played Victoria Fuller in IT: Chapter Two. In the 2019 sequel, Armstrong is featured in one of the film’s most horrifying scenes – featuring Victoria getting attacked by Pennywise The Clown (Bill Skarsgård). Now, however, she is playing a character who is quite a bit more powerful, and it sounds like she is itching for a rematch with the monstrous otherworldly entity known at IT.

It was just a few weeks ago that I asked The Stand’s Alexander Skarsgård about what would happen in a battle between Randall Flagg and Pennywise, and recently I found myself with the opportunity to ask a similar question to Ryan Kiera Armstrong. I recently interviewed Armstrong and co-star Zac Efron during the virtual junket for Firestarter, and I asked her how a showdown between Charlie McGee and Pennywise would go down. If she were to place a bet, it would definitely be on the former:

In IT: Chapter Two, Ryan Kiera Armstrong’s Victoria Fuller is an innocent girl who is attending a Little League baseball game with her mother and gets lured under the bleachers trying to catch a firefly. It’s there that she encounters Pennywise The Clown, and while she is hesitant to approach a stranger, IT gets her sympathy by crying about how people make fun of the way it looks. Because Victoria has a large birthmark on her cheek, she can relate to the clown’s woes (which of course, IT is trying to take advantage of). Pennywise tells her that it could simply blow the birthmark away if she were to get a little closer, and when she does, it lunges and kills her.

Firestarter’s Charlie McGee is definitely not Victoria Fuller, though, and would surely handle the situation very differently. Because her parents were involved in a special drug trial when they were in college, Charlie has special psychic gifts – the primary one being the ability to set fires with her mind a.k.a. pyrokinesis. If Pennywise were to approach her not knowing what she can do, it would probably be in quite a lot of trouble.

Zac Efron, who plays Charlie’s dad Andy in Firestarter, is definitely on Team Charlie as well when it comes to a battle between his on-screen daughter and Pennywise. Adding to Ryan Kiera Armstrong’s comments, he said,

To get your own sense of how a Charlie McGee vs. Pennywise fight would go down, you can check out Firestarter when it arrives in theaters and on Peacock this Friday, May 13 (if you don’t already have one, get your Peacock subscription now). In addition to Zack Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong, the film also stars Michael Greyeyes, Gloria Reuben, Kurtwood Smith, and Sydney Lemmon.

Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more from my interviews with the filmmakers and stars of Firestarter, and to stay up to date with all of the Stephen King projects that are presently in development, check out our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide. And for a deep dive into the history of adaptations, check out my weekly Adapting Stephen King column.

“Firestarter” stars Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong and director Keith Thomas discuss their new adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel in this interview with CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg. They discuss moving away from the original 1984 adaptation, working with practical fire effects, the legend John Carpenter and his original score for the film, and more.

Video Chapters

• 00:00 - Intro 
• 00:28 - 1984’s ‘Firestarter’ vs 2022 ‘Firestarter’ 
• 02:26 - Working With Actual Fire On Set 
• 03:53 - Making Changes To The Characters’ Powers For The Movie 
• 05:27 - Working With John Carpenter On The Movie’s Score 
• 06:59 - Pennywise vs Charlie, According to Ryan Kiera Armstrong

It’s rare for Hollywood to go very long between Stephen King adaptations. In fact, there hasn’t been a year without the premiere of a new King project or new season of an existing King show since 2008. In 2021, Constant Readers were treated to a double dose on the small screen – with Lisey’s Story on AppleTV+, and Chapelwaite on Epix – but 2022 is all about feature films, and the first set to arrive is Keith Thomas’ Firestarter.

Anticipation for the movie’s release this May is high – with Firestarter sporting a stellar cast including Zac Efron, Michael Greyeyes, Gloria Reuben, and Kurtwood Smith, and the source material being among the best books that Stephen King has written. The novel is definitely worth a read before the adaptation comes out, but if you don’t think you’ll have time for that in the coming weeks, the good news is that we’ve got you covered. I've put together this spoiler-free guide for you to get to know all of the main characters in the story, and, if it does its job, it will only serve to get you more excited for the upcoming film.

Andy McGee

When Andy McGee was a college student, he didn’t have a lot of money, and after hearing about a drug trial on campus that needs volunteers, he sees it as an opportunity to make a quick buck. As it turns out, it’s a decision that changes his life forever. He is administered an experimental serum that has been dubbed Lot 6, and while most of Andy’s fellow participants experience horrible deaths as a result, he is special, and actually gains psychic gifts. Specifically, he has the power to “push” people – which is to say that he can temporarily control the minds of others. The character was played by David Keith in the 1984 original adaptation of Firestarter, and in the remake it’s Zac Efron who takes on the role.

Vicky McGee

I emphasize “most” in the section above when referring to the volunteers who die after being dosed with Lot 6, because Andy McGee isn’t alone in his incredible reaction to the drug. Vicky Tomlinson, whom Andy meets and flirts with at the drug trial, also finds herself with special mental powers: the gift of telepathy. Vicky and Andy get together as a couple shortly after the experiment, and wind up getting married. Shortly after they are wed, they give birth to a child – and only after doing so do they discover that psychic abilities are passed on through DNA. Sydney Lemmon is playing Vicky McGee in the new film, the torch being passed from Heather Locklear from the original (fun fact: it was Locklear’s first movie).

Charlie McGee

Ryan Kiera Armstrong will be looking to fill the shoes of Drew Barrymore in Firestarter, playing the titular character, a.k.a. Charlie McGee. She is the daughter of Andy and Vicky McGee – though her gift is quite a lot different than her parents’. Rather than controlling minds or broadcasting her thoughts, young Charlie has the ability to set fires with her mind. It’s an incredible power that has only gotten stronger as she has grown older, and it’s something over which she doesn’t have full control. She is targeted by a shadowy government agency known as The Shop that wishes to perform experiments on her and test her limits, but Andy and Vicky refuse to let their daughter be a guinea pig, and defend her at all costs.

John Rainbird

The extreme danger that the McGees are in has a name, and it’s John Rainbird. Played by George C. Scott in the original and Michael Greyeyes in the remake, Rainbird is, in polite terms, an independent contractor that The Shop enlists in their pursuit of Charlie McGee. The agency is aware that he is a homicidal sociopath, but they think that he can be controlled. They are wrong. After learning about what Charlie can do, the villain develops an obsession with her, and while he operates under the guise of being a pawn for the shop, he has his own plans for the girl. He’s not only a violent and deadly threat, but an expert in deception.

Captain Hollister

The individual who thinks that they are pulling John Rainbird’s strings is Captain Hollister, who is the appointed head of The Shop. The upcoming Firestarter remake is changing the character a bit, as he is a white man in the book (played by Martin Sheen in the 1984 film), but will be portrayed by Gloria Reuben in the new movie. What’s definitely not changing is their ultimate goal: to harness the power of Charlie McGee and weaponized her. To quote Hollister from the 2022 Firestarter trailer, she sees Charlie as potentially being the world’s first superhero, and you can be sure that she doesn’t care in the slightest about what it means for the little girl’s life.

Dr. Joseph Wanless

Played by Freddie Jones in the 1984 movie and brought to life by Kurtwood Smith in the upcoming adaptation, Dr. Joseph Wanless is a key character from the start in Firestarter, as he is technically the individual who serves as the catalyst for the whole plot. After all, Wanless is the doctor who oversees the original Lot 6 experiment that gives Andy McGee and Vicky Tomlinson their powers. The ultimate difference between him and Captain Hollister, though, is that while Hollister is fascinated by Charlie McGee’s potential, Wanless is utterly terrified of it. The notion of such spectacular gifts being harnessed by a prepubescent girl fuels apocalyptic nightmares – believing that in enough time and with enough focus, she could have the capacity to crack the planet in half.

Firestarter will be debuting both in theaters and on Peacock on May 13. We’re going to keep our fingers crossed that it makes us update our ranking of the best Stephen King movies, and you can get hyped about every forthcoming adaptation based on the author’s work my heading over to our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

For the last few months, the upcoming remake of Stephen King's Firestarter has been a bit of a mystery. Produced by Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, the film went into production last year with Zac Efron cast as its lead, but for a long time it wasn't clear when exactly we would get to see it. Now that mystery has come to an explosive end, as not only has it been announced that the movie will be released on May 13 (both in theaters and on Peacock), but we also now have this spectacular trailer.

The movie is an adaptation of Stephen King's novel of the same name from 1980, and it centers on Charlie McGee (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) – a young girl with pyrokinetic abilities who is forced to go on the run with her father, Andy (Zac Efron), when agents from a government agency known as The Shop try to abduct her so that they can conduct experiments with her remarkable abilities. The man hunting them is a psychotic assassin named John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes), and while he is hired by The Shop, he has his own sinister plans for the tiny firestarter. 

Firestarter was previously adapted in 1984 by director Mark L. Lester, the film notably starring Drew Barrymore as the original Charlie McGee, and while it's not exactly regarded as one of the best Stephen King movies, it is most certainly one of the most faithful to its source material. Based on the footage that we see here, it looks like the remake is going to be changing some things (the sequence with Charlie in school, for example, looks like its wholly original), but there is also plenty in there that looks taken straight from the book.

One of the most exciting things about the Firestarter trailer is that it reveals some interesting casting that we didn't know about previously. For example, it looks like Robocop and That '70s Show star Kurtwood Smith is playing paranoid scientist Dr. Joseph Wanless, who is a character in the book fearful that Charlie's powers could one day be so great that she can crack the world in half.

It also looks like John Beasley has come aboard to play Irv Manders,  a kindly stranger who takes Charlie and Andy into his home after finding them hitchhiking and provides them with temporary shelter and protection.

Also huge is the revelation that horror legend John Carpenter is composing the score for Firestarter along with collaborators Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. In addition to being thrilling because Carpenter makes such fantastic movie music, it's also a fun Easter egg for those who know their Stephen King adaptation history. While the director famously made Christine back in 1983, prior to that he signed a deal to make the first film version of Firestarter – though that version of the production fell apart due to budget concerns.

Also co-starring Sydney Lemmon and Gloria Reuben, Firestarter will be in theaters and on Peacock in just a few months – and you can keep track of all of the Stephen King adaptations that are presently in the works by checking out our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

There is still quite a bit that we don't know about the upcoming remake of Stephen King's Firestarter. We don't know specifically how the movie will be modernizing the story; we don't know how a number of key supporting characters will be treated; and we don't actually know when it will be getting a theatrical release. That's quite a lot of mystery – but one thing we now know is that the film won't be holding back when it comes to graphic content, as the MPAA has delivered an R-rating to the feature.

While the MPAA can sometimes get rather descriptive when it comes to the reasons why they've decided to give a movie an adults-only grade, the only detail given on the organization's official website is "violent content." This suggests that we won't hear any characters in the film utter the word "fuck" too many times, and there won't be any nudity, but also that Firestarter isn't going to hold back too much when it comes to sequences where people are set ablaze.

Based on the 1980 Stephen King novel of the same name, Firestarter primarily centers on a psychically gifted father and daughter – Andy and Charlie McGee – who find themselves on the run from a mysterious government sector known colloquially as The Shop. While Andy has the ability to "push" people, basically a minor form of mind control, Charlie has pyrokinesis, and there is a fear that she could become so powerful that she could crack the world in half.

Keith Thomas, who made a stellar directorial debut last year with the indie horror film The Vigil, is the director of the Firestarter remake, working from a script written by Scott Teems (Halloween Kills). Zac Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong star respectively as Andy and Charlie McGee, and Michael Greyeyes is playing John Rainbird, a psychotic mercenary who is hired by The Shop to capture the protagonists.

When one considers the source material, it's wholly fitting that Firestarter would get an R-rating, as Stephen King's book not only features multiple sequences of people being set on fire, but also a rather graphic moment involving a man sticking his hand in an active garbage disposal unit (though whether or not this scene will be included in the adaptation is presently unknown). The original film adaptation of Firestarter, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Drew Barrymore, was also rated R when it hit theaters in 1984.

As noted earlier, we still don't know when Universal Pictures plans to release Firestarter – but an additional piece of good news to glean from this reveal is that the film has completed post-production. This very well could mean that it will be released as early as this spring or possibly during the summer, and that wouldn't be too bad a strategy given that another high profile Stephen King adaptation, Gary Dauberman's Salem's Lot, is currently on schedule to be released on September 9.

We'll keep you updated about Firestarter's development as more information becomes available. In the meantime, you can keep track of every Stephen King adaptation in the works via our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide, and check out everything hitting the big screen and streaming by heading over to our 2022 Movie Release Calendar.

Among my many pop culture obsessions, the level of love I have for the works of Stephen King ranks exceptionally high – and it’s not just about the books. While I do own every novel, collection, and non-fiction tome he has written, I’m also proud to say that I own every available film and television adaptation. And it doesn’t stop there, as I’m also a collector of memorabilia, including prop replicas and action figures. There’s a wide market of treasures available, and I’ve explored just about every corner I can.

Knowing that I am not alone in this healthy obsession, and recognizing that the holiday season is coming up (driving the search for gift ideas), I’ve put together this feature highlighting some of the collectables that I’ve purchased over the years that other fans may be interested in getting themselves as well. I’ve written about seven of them below – as well as three more that I don’t own, but certainly dream of attaining someday.

Die Cast Christine

There are plenty of people who collect die cast models simply because they love cars, but that makes this scale version of the titular vehicle from Christine extra special. Not only is it a beautiful recreation of a 1958 Plymouth Fury, featuring working headlights and doors, a trunk, and a hood that open and close, but it’s also a wonderful representation of one of literary history’s scariest automobiles. There are two different versions available – one in cherry condition, and the other in disrepair as Arnie Cunningham originally discovers it in the book (I personally own the latter) – but both are amazing and perfect ornamental additions to any Stephen King fan’s bookshelf.

Buy a die cast Christine on Amazon

Creepshow Action Figures

George A. Romero’s Creepshow is a key title in the legacy of Stephen King, as it was the first film that he was directly involved in the making of – having written the screenplay along with Romero. The five stories that unfold are wonderful tales of terror that also serve as wonderful tributes to the classic horror magazines published by EC Comics (material that heavily influenced King’s sensibilities as a kid). Three of the best in the bunch are “The Crate,” “Father’s Day,” and “Something To Tide You Over,” and all three make for great inspiration in the line of 3.75” action figures made by Monstarz. They’re small but awesome, and they look great on the shelf alongside other King collectables.

Buy the Creepshow Crate Action Figure on Amazon
Buy the Creepshow Father’s Day Action Figure on Amazon
Buy the Creepshow Something To Tide You Over Action Figure on Amazon

Stephen King Funko Pop

Popular as Stephen King is, he has only been made into an action figure twice. And while the bad news is that the version from the Simpsons toy line has become hard to find, the good news is that you can easily find the Funko Pop dolls modeled after the author. There are many different variations available – including his character from IT: Chapter Two, one that is covered in blood and holding an axe, and one that is made in black-and-white – but the base version that just has him wearing a black shirt and holding a book is cool all by itself.

Buy Stephen King Funko Pops on Amazon

Roger The Dog Man Mask

Of the many haunting images featured in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, one of the creepiest is the brief glimpse at a man in a tuxedo in a hotel room who is getting real… chummy with a man in a terrifying full body dog suit. This costumed man is known by fans as Roger The Dog Man, and the exceptionally bizarre moment where he’s featured can be relived over and over simply by purchase this killer mask and adding it to your Stephen King collection. I personally keep mine partially hidden behind some other collectables, so that when you spot it, it kind of freaks you out.

Buy a Roger The Dog Man mask on Trick Or Treat Studios’ website

Pennywise Action Figures

Pennywise The Dancing Clown will forever be regarded as an iconic horror villain, first brought to life on the pages of Stephen King’s IT, and that reputation has been brilliantly enhanced by adaptations and coulrophobia-inducing performances by Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard. The design of both these iterations of the character are spectacular, and they have been brilliantly rendered by NECA as part of their line of 7” action figures. Of course, if Pennywise really freaks you out you may not want to get them, as the level of detail is fantastic.

Buy the IT 1990 Pennywise Action Figure on Amazon
Buy the IT 2018 Pennywise Action Figure on Amazon

Stephen King Book Cover T-Shirts

Not only does Stephen King regularly put out enchanting and compelling prose, but it’s regularly the case that his novels and collections are published with wonderful cover art. Now you can make your own fashion statement with these designs, as Out Of Print has a full line of shirts featuring the artwork from King’s classic books – including IT, The Shining, Salem’s Lot, The Gunslinger, and The Stand.

Buy Stephen King Book Cover Shirts on Out Of Print

Randall Flagg Pins/Magnets

When Randall Flagg is introduced in The Stand, he is notably described as being clad in denim and wearing old cowboy boots, and a standout accoutrement is the collection of novelty buttons that he sports on one of his jacket’s breast pockets. Thanks to Etsy seller MemoraDelia, you can now purchase a collection of these buttons that you can pin to a jean jacket, or you can get them in magnet form and stick them to your refrigerator. Personally, I got both!

Buy Randall Flagg Pins/Magnets on Etsy

Stephen King Collectables I Dream Of Owning

I will openly admit that I’ve dropped a good amount of money on Stephen King books and collectables in my life. Still, however, there are some very special items that I would love to add to my collection, but I simply cannot afford. Below are three of the big ones.

The Gunslinger First Edition Hardcover

Stephen King’s Dark Tower series is now considered by many Constant Readers to be the author’s magnum opus – but it didn’t exactly get a great deal of fanfare when it launched back with the publication of The Gunslinger. The first hardcover edition of the novel was put out by Donald M. Grant Publisher, Inc., and only given a limited run in 1982 that passed most fans by. Eventually the book was discovered, and it has been reprinted many times, but the original first editions remain rare treasures that now carry ridiculous price tags.

Revival Limited Edition

Put simply, Revival is one of my favorite Stephen King books. There are few works by the author that are as bone-chilling and disturbing, as its conclusion is one that haunts the mind long after one is done reading it. As such, I think it’s pretty damn fitting that one of the most gorgeous special editions ever developed for a King novel is the 2019 design for Revival put out by Lividian Publications. The presentations is phenomenal, as the 17” tall tome is constructed with a synthetic leather cover and comes with a beautiful a slip case, and there is amazing original artwork featured inside from artist by Vincent Chong. Sadly, only 1,500 copies were published, and they aren’t easy to come by now without paying a very steep price.

Firestarter Special First Edition

When Firestarter was originally published by Viking Press in 1980, its first standard hardcover got a wide release, but also made available at the time in limited qualities (read: only 26 were made) was an edition that is just all kinds of spectacular. In brief, there is version of the book that sports a cover made of aluminum-coated asbestos cloth – making it fireproof. I’ve come to grips with the fact that I will never own one of these beauties, but that doesn’t stop me from admiring its awesomeness.

To learn how to find all of Stephen King’s books and the adaptations of his works, be sure to check out our guide to building the Ultimate Stephen King collection. And if you want to keep up to date about all of the movies and television shows based on the author’s works that are coming in the next few years and beyond, head on over to our regularly updated Upcoming Stephen King Movies And TV feature.

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Zac Efron and 11-year-old actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong spent their summer in Canada filming the remake of Stephen King’s Firestarter novel for Blumhouse. The movie follows the 1984 film that starred a young Drew Barrymore as a young girl who develops pyrokinesis abilities. Many specific details about the upcoming sci-fi horror movie are still being kept secret, but the new Charlie has shared her experience on the film.

Ryan Kiera Armstrong spoke with CinemaBlend’s Nick Venable as she stars in FX’s latest American Horror Story’s latest season, titled Double Feature. When asked about her work on Firestarter, she said this:

According to the young actress, there are a lot of awesome practical stunts going down in Firestarter. The movie was directed by a fairly new filmmaker, Keith Thomas, who previously made a horror film called The Vigil in 2019. Armstrong sounds like she’s super confident about Firestarter, and getting to work with Zac Efron was a massive highlight. She praised the actor for his character and hard work on the project. She also referenced the 1984 film as well, saying:

This version of Firestarter was produced by Blumhouse and Universal following the studio’s string of success in the horror genre, including Halloween, The Forever Purge and The Invisible Man. It is, of course, based on the 1980 novel by Stephen King, but this time it will be a closer adaptation of the book itself than the original movie was, per one of the film’s producers, Akiva Goldsman. Check out Ryan Kiera Armstrong in the role of Charlie on the Firestarter set:

When speaking about the film, Akiva Goldsman also has shared how she thinks the material is one of Stephen King’s “most intimate and affective” projects, especially when it comes to the “expression of hidden feelings.” Prior to the film being shot over the summer, it was in the works since 2017. Some good news is King was shown the script and approved of it before any cameras started rolling.

As the story goes, a father and daughter one the run from a government agency known as The Shop after he and his wife were part of their drug experiment back in college. Succession’s Sydney Lemmon will be playing the wife of Efron’s Andy and mother to Charlie. No release date has been set for Firestarter yet, but we’d expect it’ll come out sometime next year.

When Zac Efron first shot to stardom as Troy Bolton in High School Musical, no one could have predicted his career trajectory. From starring in Baywatch to bringing back Ted Bundy, he’s shown an uncanny ability to choose unforgettable projects. Now he’s celebrating the end of production on another impressive credit -- a starring role in a new adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter.

In a recent Instagram post, Zac Efron let fans know about his massive milestone with Firestarter. Alongside photos of himself and co-star Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Efron let his followers know how excited he is for us all to see Keith Thomas’ new movie. Check out the short-but-sweet update below:

In addition to the actors’ cool Firestarter crew t-shirts, the firetruck in the background is a cute touch, given the premise of the movie. In Firestarter, Efron will play Andy McGee, a father who must save his pyrokinetic daughter Charlie (Armstrong) from a frightening government agency that wants to use her powers. So it’s safe to say that a fire truck probably came in handy at some point on set.

It seems like Efron is really excited about his work on this one, and it’s not hard to see why. The actor has branched out into a lot of different genres over the years, from movie musicals to frat house comedies to period dramas. Firestarter will be his first pure horror film, though, and one that should give him a chance to expand his repertoire yet again. And given that his horror movie debut is attached to the Stephen King, it’s an especially impressive addition to his résumé.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Firestarter has been adapted for the screen. Drew Barrymore starred in a 1984 film based on the book, which has become a bit notorious for being one of the worst Stephen King movies to date (via Rotten Tomatoes). Still, Efron has cause to be optimistic about this one -- while King himself was not a fan of the original adaptation, he had good things to say about the new adaptation’s screenplay.

We’re living in a bit of a golden age for Stephen King adaptations. In the past few years, the author’s extensive library of scary stories has become a popular source for film and TV creators. Some have failed to hit the mark, but those that have - like IT and the Shining sequel Doctor Sleep - are arguably some of the best King adaptations ever.

It’s too early to know whether Efron’s first foray into Stephen King’s creepy canon will be a hit or a miss but, if you’re a fan of the actor or the author, it’s easy to root for its success. Firestarter’s release date hasn’t been set yet, but it’s fair to assume it will hit theaters some time in 2022.

As I noted a few weeks ago in my column about David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone, the end of the 1970s was a difficult time for Stephen King. The author experienced a good deal of strife in the writing and release of The Stand, including more than a little head-butting with his publishers at Doubleday, and it created some issues for him creatively. The Dead Zone was not a book that flowed out of him, and to help himself get around the jam he worked on other projects. Two of them, Welcome To Clearwater and The Corner, were ultimately abandoned, but another book he started at that time was Firestarter. It too had its trials and tribulations, the standout being King’s questioning of whether or not he was just rewriting Carrie, but he persisted, and when he came back to it after publishing The Dead Zone he recognized it as being not only being different from the story of Carrie White, but better.

Considering this, it’s fitting that the process of bringing Firestarter to the big screen wasn’t precisely easy either. Originally it was supposed to be director John Carpenter who told the story of young Charlie McGee on the big screen (this being before Christine was even a book let alone a movie), but it was a project that quickly hit a brick wall. As adapted by screenwriter Bill Phillips, the film would have required Universal Pictures to pony up a $20 million budget – and while that investment was considered substantial all by itself, Carpenter was also coming off the tragic box office flop that was The Thing. Had the studio had a time machine, executives could have seen that the 1982 movie would become one of the most beloved horror titles of all time, but alas…

Enter director Mark L. Lester. The filmmaker, coming off the controversial Class of 1984, met with Universal and said that he could turn Firestarter into a movie for $10 million, and in May 1984 that vision arrived on the big screen (albeit about $5 million over budget). It’s a feature with a stellar cast, starring the likes of Drew Barrymore, George C. Scott, Martin Sheen, Freddie Jones, Art Carney, Heather Locklear, and Louise Fletcher, and it’s inarguably one of the most faithful King films that have been made – but how does it stack up both as an adaptation and a cinematic experience now that it’s nearing its 40th anniversary, especially with a remake is on the list of upcoming Stephen King movies? That’s the focus of this week’s Adapting Stephen King.

What Firestarter Is About

I’d venture a guess that a majority of science-fiction/fantasy fans have at one point or another had their interest piqued by stories of spontaneous combustion. After all, it is fascinating: the idea that an individual could at some point, and for no discernable reason, burst into flames. It’s a scary concept – so it should be of little surprise that it was one that got caught in the spider web of Stephen King’s mind as he was doing research into paranormal phenomena. What could cause somebody to suddenly start burning? Could it be the will of someone with the ability to control fire with their mind?

This, according to Bev Vincent’s essay “A Pleasure To Burn,” then led the author to consider the LSD trials that were conducted in the 1950s. Government-led and funded operations such as Project ARTICHOKE and Project MK-Ultra examined the potential for the psychoactive drug to be used in interrogation and for mind control, and while those programs didn’t result in the creation of any legitimate psychics (that we know about), Stephen King pondered what would happen if they did.

The ideas coalesced to set the stage for Firestarter and the meeting of Vicky Tomlinson and Andy McGee – a pair of college kids who are looking to make some fast cash by participating in a study run by a psychology professor/behaviorist named Dr. Wanless (who is secretly working for the Department of Scientific Intelligence a.k.a. The Shop). As part of an assemblage of 12 volunteers, they are given an experimental drug called Lot Six, and though many of the subjects experience violent reactions to the chemical compound, both Vicky and Andy individually wind up gaining psychic abilities. She develops the capacity to read people’s thoughts, and with enough concentration he can alter a person’s perception (what he calls a “push”).

Because of the horrific outcome of the trial, future testing of Lot Six is shut down, and Andy and Vicky are put under regular surveillance. Living generally normal lives, they become involved romantically and after getting married have a daughter named Charlene – and they are shocked to discover that their altered genetics have led to their child having arguably the most dangerous psychic ability of all: pyrokinesis (a word that may or may not have originated with the creation and promotion of Firestarter).

When Charlie McGee turns seven, her powers continuing to get stronger and stronger, The Shop, led by Captain James Hollister, decides that it is time to bring her in for study. Andy and Charlie are forced to go on the run after Vicky is killed by government operatives, and circumstances become exponentially more dangerous when the agency’s desperation leads Hollister to employ ruthless mercenary John Rainbird to assist in the abduction.

How Mark L. Lester’s Firestarter Differs From Stephen King’s Book

According to Mark L. Lester in the documentary Playing With Fire: The Making of Firestarter, the version the movie that John Carpenter was originally planning to make diverged quite heavily from the source material – but that wasn’t the movie that Lester wanted to make. As such, when he began to work with screenwriter Stanley Mann in the development of the script, his move was to essentially rewrite the novel as a screenplay. Producer Dino De Laurentiis was taken aback by this decision, but the director explained it to him simply: de Laurentiis spent $1 million purchasing the rights to the book, so why not use it to the fullest possible extent?

Because of this, as mentioned above, 1984’s Firestarter remains one of the most faithful adaptations of Stephen King’s works. The overwhelming majority of the film’s scenes are taken directly from the pages of the book, and that even includes key dialogue. All of the vital material, including just about everything with Charlie (Drew Barrymore), is brought to the big screen. But, to use a baseball metaphor, it doesn’t quite manage to pitch a perfect game. There is some material that had to be left out of the feature, and the vast majority of it has to deal with Andy (David Keith), his powers, and the years he spent using his gifts before being forced to go on the run with his daughter.

If Andy were a terrible person, he could easily use his mind-control powers in nefarious ways, such as exploiting it to gain money and power, but that’s not who he is. Stephen King’s book instead takes him in the exact opposite direction: he uses his “push” to help others. In the years after the Lot Six trial, which is material not featured in the adaptation, the character makes a living by starting his own motivational programs – helping people lose weight and gain professional confidence. He wouldn’t actually tell any of his clients what he could do, or the truth about what he was really doing to them, but he is said to be effective in helping change lives.

Of course, this is a Stephen King story, so there is a dark side to this… and it is exceptionally dark. While most of the people who go to see Andy get the help they need, for some, the “treatment” doesn’t quite take. Instead of gaining confidence or losing weight, these individuals find themselves with a single idea ricocheting inside their minds. The final results differ in each case, but psychosis is always on the menu.

The most significant example of this horrific echo in Firestarter is a part of a relationship that Andy develops with a psychiatrist at The Shop named Dr. Pynchot. While planning his escape, the father/psychic purposefully sets off a ricochet in Pynchot’s head that eventually gets him to obsess about his wife’s new garbage disposal… and then stick his entire arm in it.

Cutting this material for the film has the effect of making Charlie stand out as the true protagonist of Firestarter – which she absolutely is – but at the same time it’s material that adds a lot more to Andy as a character, and it’s too bad that the movie couldn’t find any kind of way to include or even just reference it.

Is It Worthy Of The King?

For any Constant Reader, faithfulness is going to count for a lot when it comes to Stephen King adaptations. The author’s stories are so rich in detail that they invite the creation of a live-action version in one’s imagination while one reads, and it’s a reasonable desire to see that imagined version brought into reality without excessive changes or compromises. It’s admittedly a major factor in my considerations when writing this recurring segment in this column.

In that respect, Mark L. Lester’s Firestarter earns tremendous good will. The director made an argument for his specific audience when he convinced Dino De Laurentiis that making a direct adaptation of Stephen King’s book was the right way to go with the project, but his methodology also demonstrates respect for the cinematic qualities of the writer’s story and storytelling (As noted by Douglas E. Winter in 1984’s Stephen King: The Art Of Darkness, the script was, at least for a time, viewed as King’s “favorite”). Pulled from the original structure, the feature is half chase movie and half escape movie, and that narrative has a great flow across a 114 minute runtime, with an awesome ensemble of talented actors playing all of the key characters.

Firestarter can also aptly be described as an “on paper” film. Any Stephen King fan who learns about the project’s loyalty to the book is going to be excited to watch, and Dino De Laurentiis’ whole push for big name stars was an attempt at giving the production a surprise layer of prestige. But, if I may be so bold as to use a clunky-but-on-theme metaphor, it’s an adaptation that smolders more than it broils. As strong as the narrative is, the overall execution is flat – from the cinematography, to the editing, to a number of the performances.

As he would further show later in his career making the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Commando, Mark L. Lester demonstrates a talent for shooting action in Firestarter’s biggest set pieces (which is really to say all of the scenes where Charlie uses her powers), and the production makes tremendous use of practical effects. The scenes where the girl tests her abilities in lab settings are exciting and fun (particularly thanks to the confidence from young Drew Barrymore), and the finale’s wanton destruction is really everything that you’re hoping that the film is building towards.

Where it fails to fully click is in the development of its characters – and that’s just a crucial and unignorable aspect when it comes to adapting the work of Stephen King. Strange as it is to say, the chemistry between David Keith and Drew Barrymore isn’t strong enough to create the proper emotional stakes in their complex father/daughter relationship, and it feels like the movie is leaning on the audience automatically accepting the love between a parent and their child. George C. Scott’s performance as John Rainbird has also aged dreadfully, not just because it’s a white actor playing a Native American, but also because he provides none of the killer, evil energy that the villain possesses in the novel. While at the very least Art Carney (as Irv Manders) and Freddie Jones (as Dr. Wanless) have fun with their respective roles, Scott sleepwalks in the film.

Of the early Stephen King adaptations, many of which rank as some of the best Stephen King movies, Firestarter is the one to go into with limited expectations. Just do yourself a favor and don’t try and imagine how a John Carpenter-directed version could be better. Like a good “push,” that will just lead the thought to ping-pong around your brain until madness sets in.

How To Watch Mark L. Lester’s Firestarter

If you now have a fire lit under you (sorry, I’ll stop) to either revisit Firestarter or check it out for the very first time, your options to do so are plentiful. On the streaming side of things, the Stephen King movie is now currently available on Cinemax Go – and provided you have an add-on subscription you can access it on Hulu or Amazon. You can rent or purchase it digitally from online retailers, but it also has some fantastic Blu-ray options available. The Collector’s Edition put out by Scream Factory is the best domestic release, but if you have a region-free player you may want to consider the disc put out by Plan B, which features a wonderful additional commentary track with horror historian Johnny Mains.

After sticking around in the movie world for the last six editions of this column, next week I will examine what was only the second small screen adaptation of a King story by taking a long hard look at the 1984 Tales From The Darkside episode “Word Processor Of The Gods.” It will be live here on CinemaBlend next Wednesday, and in the meantime click through the banners below to find all of my previous Adapting Stephen King installments.

While Mark L. Lester’s Firestarter isn’t generally recalled as one of the all-time top tier Stephen King adaptations, one thing that is undeniable is that the ensemble cast is stacked. Drew Barrymore, fresh off her star-making turn in E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, plays the lead in the movie, and she is surrounded by the exceptional talents of Freddie Jones, George C. Scott, Art Carney, Louise Fletcher, and Martin Sheen (who starred in The Dead Zone the previous year). That’s an impressive lineup of actors that would be terrifically hard for any production to try and compare with, but the upcoming remake of the King novel is certainly doing its best.

After years of development, the new adaptation of Firestarter is finally becoming a reality, and over the last year the production has been adding some notable names to its cast. The process is still a work in progress despite the fact that the movie has already begun filming, but below you’ll learn about all of the actors confirmed to be involved thus far, and find details about the parts they will be playing.

Zac Efron

Zac Efron’s career has evolved greatly since his breakout years as the star of the High School Musical movies, and after big hits like Neighbors and The Greatest Showman he is now ready to tackle his first Stephen King adaptation. He will star as Andy McGee in the upcoming film, who is a young father forced to go on the run with his daughter while being pursued by a government agency known as The Shop. The reason they are being chased is because they both possess psychic abilities – Andy specifically having the power to “push” people to his will by altering their perception of reality.

Ryan Kiera Armstrong

Playing Andy’s daughter Charlie McGee in Firestarter is young Ryan Kiera Armstrong. She technically plays the titular role, as the great gift that Charlie possesses is pyrokinesis – a.k.a. the ability to start fires with her mind. Being just a young child, she doesn’t have full control over her abilities, and The Shop both fears her potential, and wants to harness it. Unlike Efron, Armstrong actually has past experience in Stephen King movies, as she previously played Pennywise victim Victoria Fuller in IT: Chapter Two. Her other credits include Marvel Studios’ Black Widow, the Chris Pratt sci-fi thriller The Tomorrow War, and Anne With An E.

Michael Greyeyes

John Rainbird is one of Stephen King’s most fearsome antagonists, as he is a deadly sociopath with an exceptionally strong will and devious mind – and one of the most exciting elements of the upcoming Firestarter remake is the fact that we will be getting to see the character brought to life by Michael Greyeyes. While primarily known for his work on the small screen (he currently stars in the Peacock series Rutherford Falls), he earned strong reviews at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival for his performance in the indie movie Wild Indian.

Gloria Reuben

It has been confirmed by Blumhouse Productions that Mr. Robot/City On A Hill’s Gloria Reuben has joined the cast of the new Firestarter adaptation – but an interesting wrinkle to the casting is that it hasn't been officially said what role she is playing. That being said, the trailer suggests that she is taking on the role of Captain Hollister: the head of The Shop who employs John Rainbird to track Charlie and Andy McGee down.

Sydney Lemmon

Sydney Lemmon, who like Michael Greyeyes is a veteran of Fear The Walking Dead, has come aboard Firestarter to play the aforementioned role of Vicky McGee. Vicky and Andy first meet in college when they are both volunteers for a drug trial. Like her future husband, she too gains a psychic gift – the ability to read minds… though that’s not a power that ultimately comes in too handy when agents from The Shop execute plans to abduct Charlie from the McGee home.

Kurtwood Smith

This bit of casting was kept under wraps until the debut of the first trailer for Firestarter. Like the case with Gloria Reuben, it has not yet been confirmed who Kurtwood Smith is playing in the upcoming film, but all evidence suggests that he is playing Dr. Joseph Wanless. In the book, Wanless conducts the experiment that ends up giving Andy and Vicky McGee their psychic abilities, and years later becomes beyond paranoid about the potential of Charlie McGee's powers. This will be the first time that Smith has starred in a Stephen King adaptation, but he is a veteran of both the big and small screens, best known for his roles in Robocop and That '70s Show.

John Beasley

Lastly we have John Beasley. He's another rookie when it comes to starring in Stephen King adaptations, but he's been a stalwart character actor in the industry since the 1990s. A lot of his work is on the small screen, but he has a good number of horror films on his resume, including Sam Raimi's The Gift and James DeMonaco's The Purge Anarchy. His role in Firestarter has not yet been confirmed by Universal or Blumhouse, but it's safe bet that he is playing Irv Manders, a kindly man who, along with his wife Norma, give Andy and Charlie McGee safe haven for a short spell during their time on the run.

Firestarter will be hitting theaters and streaming on Peacock on May 13. To learn about all of the developing projects based on the works of Stephen King, be sure to check out our Upcoming Stephen King guide, and to take a tour through the author’s incredible history on both the big and small screen, be sure to check out my Adapting Stephen King column.

Having spent nearly a half-century watching his novels and short stories turned into films, miniseries, and television shows, Stephen King doesn’t have a reputation for sugar-coating his opinions when it comes to adaptations of his work. He’ll proudly announce his support of any project he likes (for example, the series based on his Mr. Mercedes trilogy), but he’s also not afraid to express dissatisfaction (for example, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Children Of The Corn). Naturally, getting his approval can mean a lot, which is why it’s exciting to learn that King has thus far liked what he has seen from the developing remake of Firestarter starring Zac Efron.

The upcoming movie, directed by Keith Thomas (The Vigil), is now filming, and this week I got an exciting update about its development from producer Jason Blum – who is currently promoting the forthcoming release of The Forever Purge. His company, Blumhouse Productions, is looking to become a big name in Stephen King adaptations in the coming years, as they are also developing a remake of Christine and a feature version of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, and it was while discussing Firestarter that he talked about consulting the author about the remake. Said Blum,

First published in 1980, Firestarter was originally adapted by director Mark L. Lester in 1984, and while the movie is an extremely faithful translation of the book that features an outstanding cast (including Drew Barrymore, Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, Art Carney, and Louise Fletcher), it doesn’t quite pack the punch and energy that it should. Blumhouse has been developing the remake since 2017, but it has really been in the last year that the film has found traction and made huge leaps forward.

Scott Teems, who co-wrote the screenplay for Blumhouse’s upcoming Halloween Kills, has penned the script that got Stephen King’s seal of approval. Zac Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong star as Andy and Charlie McGee – a father and daughter with psychic abilities who go on the run from a government agency known as The Shop. Leading the search is a psychopathic mercenary named John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes), who is employed by The Shop, but has his own plans for the young girl.

Universal Pictures is set to release the film theatrically, but the studio has not yet announced a release date. To get all of the latest updates about all of the adaptations that are currently in the works, be sure to check out our Upcoming Stephen King guide, and check out my Adapting Stephen King column for weekly deep dives into King’s history on the big and small screens.

When it was announced late last month that the remake of Stephen King's Firestarter was going into production, it generated a lot of excitement... but also a fair amount of confusion. After all, cameras were starting to roll despite the fact that the film had only announced two actors as part of its cast: Zac Efron as protagonist Andy McGee and Michael Greyeyes as the villainous John Rainbird. As of today that continues to be a big question mark lingering over the project – but at the very least we do now know who is playing the titular pyrokinetic, and we also have our first look at her in character.

Blumhouse has officially announced today that Ryan Kiera Armstrong has landed the role of Charlie McGee in the Firestarter remake, and you can scope out what she will look like playing the part via the image below:

If you're a Stephen King fan and Ryan Kiera Armstrong looks oddly familiar, that's probably because you've watched IT: Chapter Two more than a few times. That's right: Firestarter will already be the young actor's second time starring in a King adaptation. In the Andy Muschietti-directed sequel, Armstrong played Victoria Fuller – the girl with a birthmark on her face who meets a grisly end when Pennywise The Dancing Clown lures her underneath the bleachers at a little league game. It's one of the best sequences in the film, and one of the scariest.

What's even funnier from a trivia perspective is that it means that she is walking in the footsteps of Drew Barrymore in more ways than one. Barrymore was the first actor to play the role of Charlie McGee on the big screen, starring in director Mark L. Lester's 1984 adaptation of Firestarter, but that wasn't her only experience with Stephen King adaptations as a child star. In 1985 she also starred in the horror anthology film Cat's Eye, which features two of King's short stories brought to live-action: "Quitters Inc." and "The Ledge".

First published in 1980, Firestarter tells the story of Andy and Charlie McGee, a father and daughter who are forced to go on the run when they start being hunted by a government agency known as The Shop. Because of a drug trial he was in as a college student, Andy has the power to "push" people, which is to say that he can alter a person's perspective of reality to suit his purposes. His wife, Vicky, was also in the experiment (becoming telepathic as a result) and they wind up passing their psychic powers down to their child. The gift that Charlie possesses, however, is the ability to start fires with her mind, and with enough concentration she could potentially crack the world in half.

Keith Thomas is directing the new big screen version of Firestarter based on a screenplay by Scott Teems. While the movie is in production now, and Universal Pictures is set to release the movie in theaters, the film does not yet have an official release date.

Between The Outsider, The Stand and the upcoming Lisey's Story and Chapelwaite, the small screen has been the primary home of Stephen King adaptations since the beginning of 2020, but fortunately it won't be too long before the author's work is back on the big screen and playing in a theater near you. After years of development at Blumhouse, the upcoming remake of Firestarter has been making its way through pre-production in the last few months, and now cameras are finally rolling. And though it will surely be a minute before we get to see some finished footage from the film, the studio has provided us with a brief and fiery glimpse of what it's like to be on set.

There is surely going to be a significant amount of work with fire on the set of Firestarter, and it seems the crew isn't wasting any time before diving into that material. Today is only day one on set, but as you can see in the video below posted by Blumhouse on Twitter, a person has already been set ablaze:

Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name first published in 1980, Firestarter tells the story of Andy McGee and his daughter Charlie – a pair of psychics on the run from a government agency known as The Shop. When Andy was a college student, he met his wife Vicky while participating in a clinical trial for a drug called Lot Six, and while most of the subjects died during the experiment, he walked away with the ability to mentally "push" people, and she developed telepathy. Charlie, meanwhile, has her gifts passed down to her genetically, and it's discovered that she can set fires with her mind a.k.a. pyrokinesis. Keeping close tabs on the family, The Shop attempts to abduct Charlie so that they can perform tests on her, but she is able to escape with her father, and together they try to find some kind of freedom while being hunted down.

As exciting as it is to hear that Firestarter has already started production, one odd thing about the news is that we only know about two actors who are a part of the movie's cast. Zac Efron signed on in September of last year to play Andy McGee, and it was back in February that we learned Rutherford Falls star Michael Greyeyes has come aboard to play John Rainbird – a psychotic mercenary who is hired by The Shop to hunt down Andy and Charlie, but secretly has his own intentions and motivations. This still leaves multiple key characters with question marks by their names, including Captain Hollister (the person who runs The Shop), Irv and Norma Manders (a couple who give the father and daughter shelter for a time), Dr. Joseph Wanless (the psychologist who ran the drug trial) and both Vicky and Charlie.

The film is being directed by Keith Thomas, who is coming off of his excellent debut feature, The Vigil, and he is working with a screenplay written by Scott Teems. Firestarter promises to be a fresh and different adaptation than the 1984 film starring Drew Barrymore, and it will be particularly interesting to see how it plays in an era when seeing characters with superpowers on the big screen is a common occurrence. Sadly we don't yet know when the movie will be released, as Blumhouse and Universal Pictures have not yet set a date, but that is news that we are hungrily anticipating.

While there is a large number of upcoming Stephen King movies currently in the works, none of them are further along than the developing adaptation of Firestarter. The novel, first published back in 1980, remains a favorite among Constant Readers, and while it’s taken a few years for the film to come together, it’s definitely happening. And while the project is still only in pre-production, we do know a number of key things about it – including the fact that Zac Efron is lined up to star.

Information about the remake of Firestarter has been slowly trickling in, and with anticipation growing for the film we’ve built this feature to briefly go over the hard facts that we know about it – including who is involved in making it, and when it will be arriving in a theater near you. We’re regularly learning more about the project, but for now here are eight quick things we know about the developing Stephen King adaptation.

Firestarter Will Technically Be The Third Movie Based On Stephen King’s Book

Stephen King’s career as an author has been tied to Hollywood pretty much from the beginning, as adaptations of his works have been getting made for almost as long as he’s been publishing books, and Firestarter is a part of that history. Director Mark L. Lester brought the story to the big screen four years after the novel was originally published, with Drew Barrymore, David Keith, and George C. Scott in the main roles. In 2002 a sequel was developed as a miniseries, titled Firestarter 2: Rekindled and starring Marguerite Moreau, Malcolm McDowell, and Dennis Hopper. It probably goes without saying, but this new film will exist entirely separate from those productions (though the filmmakers are taking notes).

Blumhouse Is Producing The Firestarter Remake

Despite being one of the biggest companies producing modern horror movies, Blumhouse Productions has only made one Stephen King adaptation to date – namely 2014’s Mercy, which is based on the short story “Gramma.” Firestarter is set to change that record, as the Jason Blum-founded shingle is a project that has been in the works there since 2017. Given Blumhouse’s track record, it’s likely that the film will be working with a small budget, likely under $10 million.

Keith Thomas Is Set To Direct Firestarter

This is a big year for director Keith Thomas, as not only did his directorial debut, The Vigil, just get distribution earlier this year, but he is now preparing to make his first studio movie. It was first reported in December 2019 that the filmmaker had come aboard the Firestarter remake, and he has surely spent the last year-and-a-half thinking about every single way to make the adaptation as great as it can possibly be.

Scott Teems Is Penning The Screenplay

Scott Teems and the team at Blumhouse seem to work well together, as he is not only credited as a co-writer on the upcoming Halloween Kills with David Gordon Green, but he has been attached as the screenwriter for the Firestarter remake going back to 2018. It’s unclear right now how the vision for the project has changed since the earliest drafts, but that’s something we’ll eventually discover as we get closer to the film’s release.

Zac Efron Will Be Playing Andy McGee

Zac Efron is totally new to the horror world, having never actually made a movie in the genre before, but he is getting one hell of an opportunity to jump in head first by playing the male lead in Firestarter. In the movie he will be playing Andy McGee, a husband and father who is forced to go on the run with his young daughter, Charlie, to avoid capture by The Shop – a government agency that wishes to conduct experiments on them because of their special psychic gifts: he has the power to mentally “push” people to do his bidding, and she has pyrokinesis. Efron is reportedly digging deep for his performance in the film, and Keith Thomas has teased that the work may eventually change the way audiences look at him.

Michael Greyeyes Has Been Cast As The Villainous John Rainbird

A big part of what makes Firestarter a scary story is the terrifying presence of John Rainbird – the Stephen King book’s central villain. John is an independent contractor who is hired by The Shop to hunt down and capture Andy and Charlie McGee, but he also happens to be a psychopath and rogue agent who has independent plans for the powerful young girl. The role in the remake will be played by Michael Greyeyes, who is featured on the Peacock sitcom Rutherford Falls and earned rave reviews at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival for his performance in the thriller Wild Indian.

Filming Is Set To Begin In Summer 2021

Firestarter may only have two actors in its cast at present, but that should be something that changes quickly, as cameras are set to start rolling very soon. In a report from The Hamilton Spectator, it's noted that principal photography is set to take place in Hamilton, Ontario and that filming will last from late May until late July. It’s not exactly what the original plan was, as filming was originally going to take place in summer 2020… but then the whole pandemic thing happened and took options off the table. With the world now recovering, however, the project is back on track.

The Firestarter Remake Doesn’t Have A Release Date Yet

We may know that principal photography is set to take place this summer, but sadly one key piece of information that we don’t have yet is precisely when audiences are actually going to get the opportunity to see the finished film. Given the existing Blumhouse studio deal, we know that Universal Pictures is all set to distribute the movie, but what hasn’t been announced quite yet is a Firestarter release date. We can assume that it will come out some time in 2022 (barring any other unforeseen delays), but it’s a movie that could be released in any season, which makes any kind of speculation difficult. Needless to say, as soon as one is revealed we will be marking our calendars and starting to count down the days.

We’re regularly learning more about this new version of Firestarter, so keep checking back to this feature for major updates, and to find out what’s going on with all of the other King adaptations in the works – both for the big screen and the small – be sure to check out our Upcoming Stephen King guide.

It's taken a few years to happen, but the gears are finally turning on the upcoming remake of Stephen King's Firestarter. The project has been in the hands of Blumhouse since 2017, and while it has cycled through a few directors in that time, the movie is now getting set to start principal photography with filmmaker Keith Thomas at the helm and Zac Efron attached to star. It should be an exciting production that is forced to face and solve multiple challenges (like any film), but the project got a nice boost of positivity today from the man behind the source material, as King publicly sent a quick, cute message of support to everyone involved.

With the news breaking this week that Firestarter will start filming in Hamilton, Ontario late next month, Stephen King took to his well-utilized Twitter page today to fire off some well-wishes to the project. Referencing an oh-so-appropriate Elvis Presley track, King wrote,

First published in 1980, Firestarter tells the story of Andy and Charlie McGee, a father and daughter who are forced to go on the run from a government agency known as The Shop. Both of them possess remarkable psychic gifts, as he is able to mentally "push" people to do his bidding by changing their perception, and she has pyrokinesis (hence the title of the book). Both fearing the potential of their powers, and also wanting to harness them, the shot-callers at The Shop make the decision to call in a psychopathic gun-for-hire named John Rainbird who, unbeknownst to them, has his own intentions for the girl. The novel was previously adapted by director Mark L. Lester in 1986, with Drew Barrymore as Charlie, David Keith as Andy, and George C. Scott as Rainbird.

According to the report retweeted by Stephen King, the new version of Firestarter is set to start filming in Canada late next month, and it will be shooting until late July. What's particularly interesting about that timeframe, however, is that the movie still has a large number of roles to fill. Zac Efron will be playing Andy McGee in the adaptation, and Michael Greyeyes came aboard a couple months ago to play John Rainbird, but they are presently the only two announced members of the ensemble. This means that the project not only still has to find its Charlie, but also cast roles like Captain Hollister (the commanding officer at The Shop), Vicky McGee (Andy's wife/Charlie's mom), and more. Presumably we're going to be getting a lot of news about more actors signing on to the project in the coming weeks.

Firestarter is all set for distribution thanks to the existing deal between Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, but a release date has not yet been announced. I'm constantly on a vigilante lookout for announcements about the movie, so stay tuned for all of the latest updates here on CinemaBlend, and to learn about all of the other adaptations in the works based on books and stories by the Master of Horror, check out our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

Stephen King is such a prolific author that not only have many of his stories been adapted into movies and/or TV shows, but quite a few of them have been adapted for such media more than once. For instance, his novel Firestarter was previously made into a movie back in 1984, and now Blumhouse Productions is working on its own take, with Zac Efron playing the lead. However, like most remakes, don’t expect this new Firestarter to simply copy what its cinematic predecessor did.

Akiva Goldsman is one of the producers attached to the new version of Firestarter, and he’s no stranger to Stephen King-related projects, having previously produced 2017’s The Dark Tower. Along with discussing his work on the Star Trek shows Picard and Strange New Worlds, Goldsman also briefly talked about Firestarter in an interview with THR, saying the following about how the upcoming movie will differ from the previous one:

Akiva Goldsman has been attached to the Firestarter remake since 2017, when the project first set up shop at Blumhouse. So he’s poured a lot of time and energy into making sure the new movie stands out, and going off the above quote, evidently we can count on this take being more faithful to the source material compared to the 1984 feature. Granted, there will still be some differences in how the Firestarter remake unfolds, which is to be expected from any adaptation. But if you’re a fan of the Firestarter book, no doubt you’ll be keeping track of how the remake better matches what unfolded on the printed page compared to how the ‘80s cinematic narrative veered into new places.

For those unfamiliar with Firestarter, the original novel followed Andy and Charlie, a father/daughter duo who are on the run from a government agency called The Shop. During college, Andy and his future wife, Victoria, participated in an experiment involving LSD that gave them unique, albeit limited, psionic abilities. When Charlie is born, it’s soon discovered she has powerful pyrokinetic powers, making the family a target and Victoria tragically being killed during one of the Shop’s capture attempts. 1984’s Firestarter starred David Keith, Drew Barrymore, Freddie Jones, Heather Locklear, Martin Sheen and George C. Scott, and it was primarily met with negative reviews. You can count Stephen King among those who didn’t like the movie, as he called it “flavorless” back in 1986.

As for this new Firestarter, it’ll star Zac Efron as Andy McGee and Michael Greyeyes as John Rainbird (the main villain), with the rest of the main cast being kept secret for now. Behind the scenes, The Vigil’s Keith Thomas is directing the remake, and he said last month that he believes Efron’s turn as Andy will change the way people look at the High School Musical alum. As Akiva Goldsman noted, filming will begin in the coming months.

While we wait for more news about this Firestarter remake, including when it’ll be released, stay apprised of the films set to arrive later in the year with our upcoming 2021 movies guide. And as always, keep visiting CinemaBlend for all the latest and greatest news concerning Stephen King adaptations.

Zac Efron has been cultivating an interesting body of work over the last few years. He’s strayed far away from his boy-next-door persona, which people came to love in the High School Musical movies. Now, Zac Efron movies have included a diverse set of characters, everything from serial killers to dads turning 17 again. He will have even more varied projects in the coming years, from his upcoming Three Men and a Baby reboot to appearing in Stephen King’s Firestarter remake. Fans of Zac Efron movies and TV shows will have a lot to watch in the next few years.

Zac Efron hasn’t just been showing a different side to himself with various fictional characters, but he’s been offering a closer look into his personal life with reality shows. He's smashing any box you try to put him in and building a whole new definition of what’s considered a Zac Efron movie. With so many upcoming projects, it may be hard to keep track of what Zac Efron movies and TV shows are coming out, so let us give you the rundown of what’s next for the star.

Save Ralph - April 6, 2021 (Post-Production)

Zac Efron will be teaming up with Ricky Gervais, Olivia Munn, and Taika Waititi to lend their voices to the animated stop-motion short Save Ralph. Save Ralph was written and directed by Spencer Susser and produced by the Humane Society International. The film is intended to bring attention to the horrors of animal testing and help ban it globally. Ralph, voiced by Taika Waititi, has been blinded in one eye and gone deaf in one of his ears due to animal testing.

The official Save Ralph teaser shows Ralph being interviewed by the voice of Ricky Gervais. Ralph then explains to the audience how he’s blind and deaf in one eye and ear, and then demonstrates the ringing noises that he hears. The teaser is played for comedic effect but also shows the real horror that Ralph has endured. We only see Ralph in the teaser, so the rest of the characters are unknown. I think we can assume that Save Ralph will flashback to his days being a lab rabbit and what he endured. You can officially watch the full short Save Ralph on April 6, 2021.

Gold - TBD 2021 (Post-Production)

Gold is an Australian survival thriller directed by Anthony Hayes. According to ScreenDaily, Gold was expected to wrap filming in December 2020. Zac Efron plays one of two strangers who finds a huge gold nugget while traveling through the desert. The two characters plan to share their bounty, but then one leaves, and the other worries that he’s been shafted and left on his own. Anthony Hayes will also co-star in Gold.

Hayes spoke about the film to Deadline and said this about Gold’s intention:

Based on what Hayes has said about Gold and its description, it seems like Zac Efron’s character will be battling natural elements, and possibly people, to protect the gold and survive in the Australian desert. Gold was filmed in the South Australian outback, and it’s set to premiere in Australia first but no release date has been announced yet. As of March 2021, the release date still looks to be set for 2021.

Down To Earth Season 2 - TBD 2022 (Filming)

Down to Earth is a hit Netflix series that premiered in July 2020. Down to Earth Season 1 had eight episodes, with Zac Efron and Darin Olien traveling around the world to find sustainable ways to live. Some of the places featured are Iceland, Puerto Rico, and France. It is a lighthearted series that shows a more down to earth Efron, as he learns and tests new ways to live.

In March 2021, it was announced that Down to Earth had been renewed for a second season. Zac Efron and his brother (and Down to Earth producer), Dylan, have been using their Instagrams to document some of the filming. The series seems to currently be filming in Australia, with Efron encountering creatures like kangaroos and dolphins. According to The Daily Mail, Down to Earth Season 2 may also feature Zac’s girlfriend Vanessa Valladares, but it’s unknown if she’ll appear in all the episodes or just a few. According to Deadline, Down to Earth Season 2 is aiming for a 2022 release date.

Three Men And A Baby - TBD (Pre-Production)

In August 2020, Disney announced that Zac Efron would be one of the leads in a Three Men and a Baby remake. The remake is set to premiere on Disney+ with Gordon Gray producing it and Will Reichel writing the script. In January 2021, Disney announced Maurice "Mo" Marable would direct. Three Men and a Baby was an '80s hit for Disney, grossing over $100 million. It then had a 1990 sequel called Three Men and a Little Lady. The first movie starred Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson.

It was directed by Leonard Nimoy and revolved around three bachelors trying to learn to raise a baby and adjust to fatherhood. As of March 2021, no other cast announcements have been made, but once the other two male leads are announced, I believe filming will begin on the Three Men and a Baby remake. Because filming did begin as of early April 2021, and Efron is currently filming Down to Earth Season 2, the earliest we could see this movie likely won't be until sometime in 2022.

King Of The Jungle - TBD (Pre-Production)

King of the Jungle is based on the real-life of John McAfee, the creator of McAfee Antivirus software. It’s about how he cashed out his fortune, left civilization, and then moved to a jungle in Belize. Originally, Michael Keaton was supposed to play McAfee and Seth Rogen was supposed to play Wired magazine journalist Ari Furman.

However, both Rogen and Keaton have left the project. In November 2019, Zac Efron was announced as Rogen’s replacement. As of March 2021, no one has been announced in the role of John McAfee. King of the Jungle follows McAfree’s compound full of sex, guns, and mayhem, and shows how Furman gets drawn into that lifestyle. Originally, production on King of the Jungle was set to begin in early 2020, but as of March 2021, production has yet to begin on King of the Jungle. With Efron’s busy schedule, I wouldn’t expect this film’s release until late-2022 or early 2023. The movie also needs to find a co-lead, so that could push production even further back for King of the Jungle.

Firestarter - TBD (Pre-Production)

In September 2020, Blumhouse announced that Zac Efron would be the lead of the Firestarter remake. Keith Thomas is set to direct with Scott Teems adapting the screenplay for the film. Jason Blum, Martha De Laurentiis, and Akiva Goldsman will produce. The original 1984 Firestarter starred Drew Barrymore, but this remake will still follow Andy McGee (Efron) and daughter Charlie, who both have powers. Charlie has the power to set fires with her mind, and she and her dad go on the run from a secret government agency looking to control her.

In February 2021, Michael Greyeyes joined the cast to play the main villain. Firestarter is based on a book by Stephen King of the same name. Keith Thomas talked about wanting to use the original movie as a blueprint on how to faithfully adapt the book, but the new movie should have a chance to include some stuff not fully fleshed out in the first adaptation. In March 2021, Thomas spoke about Efron really trying to get to the heart of what drives Andy McGee.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever - TBD (Pre-Production)

The Greatest Beer Run Ever is based on the book The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty and War by Chick Donohue and J.T Molloy. The film will be directed by Peter Farrelly. It will star Zac Efron and Russell Crowe, with Bill Murray possibly in a supporting role. Farrelly also co-wrote the script for The Greatest Beer Run with Brian Currie and Peter Jones.

The film will be an Apple Original movie. It follows Donohue as he tries to bring beer to his childhood buddies in the Army, while they’re fighting in Vietnam. Donohue goes to extremes to complete this mission, even going through jungles to find his three friends. Efron will play Donohue and Deadline reported that the hope was to begin production on The Greatest Beer Run ever in August 2021. It will likely film in New Zealand and Australia.

Killing Zac Efron - TBD (Announced)

Killing Zac Efron is a survivalist series. This time, Efron planned to spend 21 days in the wilderness trying to survive on very little. It resulted in Efron actually becoming ill for some time while filming. Killing Zac Efron was first announced in November 2019, and it was being developed for Quibi.

Quibi launched in April 2020, but by December 2020, it had already shut down the service. Killing Zac Efron was one of the planned series to never make it on the platform. In January 2021, Roku channel announced plans to broadcast Quibi content on its channel. So, we have no clue whether Killing Zac Efron will appear on the Roku channel or if Zac Efron and his team will shop the series around to another service or network, or if it will never see the light of day.

There are plenty of Zac Efron movies and TV shows coming out soon. I can’t wait to know the 2021 movies’ premiere dates to watch more of Zac Efron’s evolving career.

Making the transition from child star to adult actor is a challenge that many have tried and failed, but Zac Efron is certainly an exception. He landed his first acting gig when he was only 15 years old, and was world famous before he turned 20, but key professional choices over the last decade have helped his career endure his maturity. The most important factor in this has been helping fans change their perception of him as a performer, and director Keith Thomas believes that Efron’s next movie, a remake of Stephen King’s Firestarter, will help him evolve in audience’s eyes even further.

Zac Efron is playing Andy McGee in the film – the father of a six-year-old girl who possesses incredible abilities – and when I recently spoke with the developing feature’s director he emphasized that the role will be an interesting one for fans of the actor to take in. As featured in the video of our conversation at the top of the article, I brought up the fact that Efron is a performer whom we have watched grow up on screen, and Keith Thomas remarked that Firestarter has the potential to be a real perception-changer:

Now that he’s an adult, Zac Efron is taking on more adult roles, and his part in Firestarter certainly fits the bill. He is no longer the basketball-playing teenager he was in High School Musical, the frat boy he was in Neighbors, or even the wild 20-something he was in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. We haven’t really seen him in the husband/father role before, and the Stephen King movie could be the perfect opportunity for him to demonstrate more dimensions.

First published in 1980 (and previously adapted as a 1984 film starring Drew Barrymore), Firestarter follows Andy McGee and his daughter Charlie as they go on the run from a government agency known as The Shop that wants to perform experiments on them because of their incredible abilities. After volunteering for a drug trial when he was in college, Andy gained the power to “push” people’s minds, and Charlie has pyrokinesis.

The new Stephen King adaptation is still in pre-production, and the cast is still growing – with the news breaking a few weeks ago that the villainous John Rainbird will be played by Michael Greyeyes. I’m hoping it will wind up featuring Zac Efron’s best performance yet, and Keith Thomas’ comments give me confidence.

Andy McGee, the protagonist of Stephen King’s Firestarter, is a textured and well-built character. He’s not just a man with psychic powers courtesy of a drug trial he volunteered for while in college, but also the father to a daughter with extraordinary abilities whom he must protect while on the run from a shadowy government agency known as The Shop. It would be a meaty role for any star taking on the part in the upcoming remake, but it’s a part that has belonged to Zac Efron since last fall, and per director Keith Thomas it’s a performance for which he’s eagerly preparing.

I recently asked the filmmaker about his experience thus far working with Zac Efron in the development of Firestarter, and he enthusiastically spoke about the star’s commitment to his role. Highlighting the complexity of the part, Thomas remarked that the actor is digging deep into who Andy McGee is, saying,

The primary goal of Andy McGee throughout Firestarter is ensuring the health and safety of his daughter, a six-year-old girl with pyrokinesis – but what comes in handy is the fact that he is able to perform a kind of mind control. Described by Stephen King as a “push,” Andy has the capacity (with proper focus) to alter a person’s perception of reality, such as making a taxi driver see a five-hundred dollar bill instead of a normal single. It’s a delicate thing for two reasons, however: the first is that it does extreme damage to the young father’s brain, and second in the long term it can have the effect of driving an individual insane.

The role of Andy McGee was previously played by David Keith in director Mark L. Lester’s adaptation of Firestarter from 1984, but audiences shouldn’t simply expect a reprisal of that performance in the new film. Instead, Keith Thomas says that his vision is finding Zac Efron specifically to bring out the character from Stephen King’s book, with an emphasis on his demonstrated exhaustion. Said the director,

Firestarter is still coming together in pre-production, but the movie did expand the cast beyond just Zac Efron last month with the addition of Michael Greyeyes – who will be playing the central antagonist, John Rainbird. With filming expected to start up in the coming months, more news about the project is expected relatively soon.

And for those of you who are curious about Keith Thomas’ style as a director, do yourself a favor and check out his directorial debut, The Vigil, which is now out in limited theatrical release, and is available on PVOD.

When thinking about the upcoming Firestarter remake in comparison to the previous feature adaptation from 1984, one particular aspect of modern pop culture definitely stands out for its potential to have a massive influence: the on-going superhero boom. Save for Richard Donner’s Superman and a few other titles, comic book movies weren’t really a thing when the Stephen King book was being adapted for the first time over 30 years ago, but now we live in a world with competing Cinematic Universes and multiple blockbusters every year about people with powers.

It would basically be impossible for the new Firestarter adaptation starring Zac Efron to not be impacted by the trend – and when I spoke with the director of the film last week, he not only confirmed as much, but also explained how his movie will counter what’s become traditional in the realm of superhero storytelling.

Currently promoting the release of his debut film The Vigil (which arrives in limited release this Friday), Keith Thomas told me that his upcoming Stephen King adaptation will “definitely” be influenced by the omnipresence of superpowers in today’s movies, but also added both his thoughts on the influence of the original book, and how it stands in contrast to what we typically see emerge from the concept. Said Thomas,

In the book, the protagonists that Keith Thomas namedrops, Andy and Charlie McGee, are characters that possess incredible psychic gifts, but what makes them special in comparison to the normal Marvel or DC heroes is the horror that exists in the foundation of their abilities. For Andy (who will be played by Zac Efron in the remake), he has the power to “push” people – and what that means is that he has the capacity to slightly change a person’s perception of reality. It takes a serious physical toll on him and his brain, but what’s far more terrible is that it’s not uncommon for those he pushes to be driven utterly insane in the long term.

As for Charlie McGee, what’s scary about her is the combination of both the extent of her power and her immaturity. She is only seven years old, but her pyrokinesis ability is so incredible that with enough effort she could crack the world in half.

The origin of these psychic skills in the Stephen King story is an experimental drug called Lot 6, which Andy and Charlie’s mother, Vicky, are given during a volunteer trial when they are in college. Vicky winds up becoming telepathic, and it’s surmised that Charlie winds up being so powerful because the genes of both her parents were rewritten.

That science-based/real world approach to both superpowers and horror is something that Keith Thomas very much clicked with in the book, and it’s something that he very much plans to maintain in his big screen version of Firestarter. He continued,

So while Firestarter will be released in the same calendar year as a number of massive blockbusters exploring superpower-driven narratives, you can be sure that it will be bringing something totally different to the table.Firestarter is currently in pre-production and putting together its cast (Michael Greyeyes was recently confirmed to be playing the villainous John Rainbird), and we’ll have more from my interview with Keith Thomas about the film in the coming days. And if you’re curious to see what skills the filmmaker is bringing to the table with the Stephen King adaptation, be sure to check out The Vigil, as it will only serve to raise your confidence.

The works of Stephen King have been adapted more times than any other living author, with short stories and novels being transformed into movies, shows, and miniseries – and it’s not all that uncommon for filmmakers to take multiple cracks at the same material. For example, King’s first three books were Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and The Shining, and since they were released in the late 1970s all three have been given the Hollywood treatment multiple times. For Constant Readers it’s always interesting to watch how things shake out, which is why one project that has grabbed my attention is director Keith Thomas’ upcoming remake of Firestarter starring Zac Efron.

The project is still in pre-production as of the time of this article’s publication, having recently added its second cast member in Michael Greyeyes, and thinking about the film has made me wonder how it could benefit from reflecting on certain choices made by past Stephen King remakes. Putting some extra thought into this idea, I’ve come up with a list of four lessons that the new take on Firestarter should consider to become the best movie that it can be. And I’ll start with what is probably the most obvious…

Don’t Just Do The Same Thing Again

If you haven’t already seen director Mark L. Lester’s adaptation of Firestarter from 1984, there’s one piece of information that should be known before getting deeper into this feature: it’s actually a film that has aged quite well. It has issues that will be further explored as it’s discussed further here, but it’s a faithful take on Stephen King’s original novel, and effectively puts on screen what the author gets across in the book. It also happens to be easily available both digitally and physically for anyone who cares to watch it. So what would be the point of just making that exact same movie again?

This is a lesson that the Firestarter remake can take from director Kimberley Pierce’s Carrie in 2013 – a film that was made in the shadow of the Brian De Palma-helmed classic, and failed to escape it due to the fact that it’s basically the exact same movie made with a different cast. If Keith Thomas and/or screenwriter Scott Teems have original ideas to apply to the structure or the narrative, they should lean into those instincts and make efforts to have their take on the story stand out from the original starring a young Drew Barrymore.

Mix Things Up, But Don’t Stray Far From The Book

Here’s where things get a bit tricky – and it’s just part of the nature of the beast. The Firestarter remake needs to make changes from the original in order to establish its own pop culture raison d'etre, but also key in that is to not lose sight of the source material. At the end of the day, the film should be a reflection of the original Stephen King book that inspired it, and there should be a heightened awareness of moments and elements from the book that deserve to remain unaltered in the new take.

Considering this, the first King remake that comes to mind is 2019’s Pet Sematary, a film that opted to replace the death and resurrection of a two-year-old boy with the death and resurrection of his older sister. The end result is nowhere near as impactful as either the novel or the original adaptation from 1989. For Firestarter, this would be the equivalent of making Charlie McGee a teenager instead of a school-age child who can’t quite control her pyrokinesis, and that’s exactly the kind of big swing that the remake doesn’t need to try.

Adapt Material From The Book That The Previous Version Skipped

Here’s a kind disappointment that every booklover/cinephile has experienced at least once before: you read a novel in anticipation of an upcoming adaptation, and develop a clear vision of a particular sequence in your head… only to later learn that said sequence has been cut from the movie version. It’s always a bummer – but also a circumstance that can be righted by a remake. And Firestarter can ultimately prove to be a great opportunity for just that.

Looking at the past for an example, fans will remember that the 1990 miniseries version of IT didn’t include the horrifying opening sequence from the book featuring the murder of Adrian Mellon at the hands of vicious homophobes and Pennywise The Dancing Clown, but director Andy Muschietti righted that particular wrong when he made IT Chapter Two nearly 30 years later. There are multiple examples of this from Firestarter – for example, Andy McGee’s mind-control powers having the long term effect of driving people completely insane – and it would be great to see the remake make maneuvers that allows it to cover that fresh ground.

Add More Gender And Racial Diversity To The Cast

To be entirely blunt, Stephen King stories have a tendency to be very, very white, and Firestarter is no exception. From Charlie and Andy McGee, to Norm and Irv Manders, to the majority of key players at The Shop, just about every character in the book is Caucasian. The most significant exception is the main antagonist, the Native American assassin John Rainbird, but even that role went to a white actor (George C. Scott) in the 1984 version. The upcoming remake has already made some strides to improve things, including casting Native American actor Michael Greyeyes in the villain role, but the film could continue to go further as it builds out its ensemble.

The casting of Zac Efron as Andy McGee suggests that the project won’t be mixing things up in terms of gender and race when it comes to the story’s leads, but there are multiple characters in the story who could easily be changed for the benefit of the story – such as Shop director Captain Hollister (played by Martin Sheen in the original) or psychologist Dr. Joseph Wanless (played by Freddie Jones). A similar effort towards greater diversity was recently well done in the making of the CBS All Access adaptation of The Stand, with characters like Larry Underwood and Ralph Brentner changed for the better, and that would be a great thing to see in the new Firestarter.

As noted, Firestarter is currently only in pre-production, but it’s a film that’s been exciting to track through development, and we’re only anticipating more good news. Provided that it takes the proper lessons from Stephen King remakes of the past, there exists tremendous potential in this movie, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

While it doesn’t get the attention of films like Brian De Palma’s Carrie, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, or John Carpenter’s Christine, Mark L. Lester’s 1984 adaptation of Firestarter can be looked back upon as one of the better Stephen King movies. Some aspects certainly haven’t aged well (such as the casting of George C. Scott as the Native American villain John Rainbird), but mostly it’s a faithful translation of the book, and it features one of Drew Barrymore’s best early performances.

You might think that this level of quality could be an impediment to the developing remake that is set to star Zac Efron, but according to its director, Keith Thomas, the fact that 1984’s Firestarter exists is actually a benefit to the developing production. Thanks to that film being a mostly straight adaptation of the Stephen King source material, it’s going to allow the new movie to do some things it otherwise may have not been able to pull off, and focus on elements of the story that weren’t fully fleshed out previously.

Keith Thomas’ excellent directorial debut, The Vigil, is set to arrive in limited release this Friday, and when I had the chance to speak with him last week I took the opportunity to ask about the work he’s been doing on his sophomore feature. This included asking him about the influence of the previous Firestarter movie on his upcoming adaptation, and he started his response by noting his respect for the film. Said the filmmaker,

First published in 1980, Firestarter tells the story of Andy and Charlie McGee, a father and daughter who find themselves running for their lives while being pursued by a government agency known as The Shop. When he was in college, Andy and Charlie’s mother were involved in an experiment with a drug called Lot 6, and it wound up giving them psychic abilities – which they then passed on to their child. With enough concentration, the young dad has the ability to mentally “push” people (a form of mind control), but the girl is seen as far more dangerous given that she has pyrokinesis a.k.a. she’s a Firestarter.

As noted by Keith Thomas, the movie version from 1984 hones close to the story that Stephen King wrote, and while it cuts out some notable scenes and aspects of the book (for example, Andy’s time using his powers for a career as a kind of life coach) it never deviates far from the material. It’s something that the filmmaker ultimately appreciates, as it invites the idea of him not just doing the same thing, and digging into aspects of the novel that the previous film didn’t.

Continuing, the director explained that in his opinion there are certain parts of Firestarter that were left unexplored in Mark L. Lester’s interpretation, and perhaps more importantly aspects that simply couldn’t be properly portrayed with filmmaking techniques of the 1980s. Said Thomas,

To be frank, this is exactly what I wanted to hear about the direction of the Firestarter remake, and it only has me more excited to continue following it through development. The movie is still in pre-production, but has started building its cast beyond Zach Efron, as Michael Greyeyes has come aboard to play the new John Rainbird. We’ll should hear more official news about the project in the coming weeks, but for now be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend, as I’ll have a lot more for you from my interview with Keith Thomas and our conversation about both Firestarter and The Vigil.

The remake of Stephen King's Firestarter is now really starting to come together. The project was announced to be developing at Blumhouse in 2017, and director Keith Thomas came aboard in late 2019, but then last fall the movie took a massive step forward by adding it's first A-lister: Zac Efron. Now, a little more than four months later, Efron is no longer the only member of the cast, as the project has officially announced the casting of the main villain.

Blumhouse has revealed that actor Michael Greyeyes, best known for his work on shows including Fear The Walking Dead, True Detective, and V-Wars, has landed the role of John Rainbird in the Firestarter remake. In recent weeks the actor has earned praise for his performance in the 2021 Sundance Film Festival entry Wild Indian, and this part looks like it could wind up being his most high-profile one of his career thus far.

Based on the book by Stephen King that was first published in 1980, Firestarter tells the story of Andy and Charlie McGee – a father and daughter who find themselves running for their lives from an agency known as The Shop because of psychic powers they possess. With enough concentration, Andy has the ability to mentally "push" people (a limited kind of mind control), but far more important to the government is that young Charlie has pyrokinesis a.k.a. she's a firestarter.

John Rainbird is an agent who operates for The Shop – and is also a sadistic psychotic. When he learns of what Charlie can do, he becomes obsessed with her, and though his handlers don't know it, he has plans to take the girl for himself when she is found. It's a terrifying character, and the potential for a great performance from Michael Greyeyes is through the roof.

In the 1984 version of Firestarter, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring a young Drew Barrymore as Charlie McGee, the role of John Rainbird was played by George C. Scott. With a modern perspective, it's definitely an example of problematic casting, as the character is Native American, but that's clearly an issue that has been avoided with the remake.

Scott Teems, who has been working with Blumhouse on the upcoming franchise sequel Halloween Kills, is writing the adaptation from Stephen King's book – though the latest press release doesn't mention when the movie is planning to begin rolling. With Firestarter moving its gears and getting its cast together, though, that likely means that the start of filming isn't far off. Hopefully we'll learn about more names joining Zac Efron and Michael Greyeyes in the cast soon – filling key roles like Charlie McGee, Vicky McGee, Captain Hollister, Dr. Joseph Wanless, and Irv and Norma Manders –and with that information may come details about the launch of production.

As of right now, there are a lot of Stephen King adaptations that are currently in the works – both for the big screen and small – but few are as exciting as the developing remake of the 1980 novel Firestarter. The film is set to be produced by Blumhouse and directed by up-and-comer Keith Thomas, and it was reported this past summer that Zac Efron has signed on to play the role of Andy McGee – a young man who has to go on the run with his pyrokinetic daughter while being pursued by a government agency known as The Shop. Now, fans are just waiting for the project to progress further and start adding more names to the cast, but while we exhibit some patience, I figured that I’d have a bit of fun speculating about actors who would be great fits for the key roles.

To add a bit more of a challenge to the task, I’ve narrowed the pool of options to only performers who have acted in previous adaptations from the author – and even with that limitation I think I’ve found a great collection of talent who can effectively embody their respective characters (and who also fit with the existing casting). Pulling names from movies and shows like IT Chapter 2 and The Outsider, here are seven Stephen King actors who should join Zac Efron in the remake of Firestarter!

Violet McGraw (Doctor Sleep) As Charlie McGee

Of all the picks for this list, finding the right actor to play Charlie McGee presented far and away the greatest challenge. After all, Charlie is only supposed to be eight years old, and so I really only could choose from the most recent Stephen King adaptations. The stroke of luck is that Violet McGraw, who is featured in the opening scene of Doctor Sleep, would make an honestly excellent pick. She’s technically already a bit old for the part (she’s nine-years-old as of the time of this feature’s publication), but she has proven to be a talented performer, not only in the Shining adaptation, but also in Netflix’s The Haunting Of Hill House. She also has the perfect innocent look to play a child who doesn’t quite have a leash on her incredible gifts.

Zahn McClarnon (Doctor Sleep) As John Rainbird

If I’m being totally honest, the idea of Zahn McClarnon playing the new version of John Rainbird was very much the inspiration for writing this list, as he truly would be the ideal pick to play the Firestarter antagonist. Rainbird is a cruel and twisted individual who works as an agent for The Shop, badly scarred as a result of his time in military service, as the role requires an actor who can both chill the blood and demonstrate a softer side (specifically for the part of the story where he tries to befriend Charlie and get her to go along with The Shop’s plans). McClarnon most definitely has the skills required, as the man has frequently proven himself to be an outstanding performer – his standout credits include playing Crow Daddy in Doctor Sleep, as well as turns on the television shows Fargo and Westworld.

Jessica Chastain (IT: Chapter 2) As Captain Hollister

There is an unwritten onus that remakes have to switch up certain elements in order to differentiate and modernize the story being told, and I’m thinking one of the ways that can happen with this new version of Firestarter is with Captain Hollister. The head of The Shop, the character was played by Martin Sheen in the 1983 film, but this time around it would be great to see IT Chapter 2’s Jessica Chastain take on the role. Her Oscar-nominated turn in Zero Dark Thirty should be all the proof that’s needed to demonstrate that she can access the kind of authority necessary for the part, and it would be interesting to see how the gender change might have an impact on her relationship with Charlie McGee.

Justine Lupe (Mr. Mercedes) As Vicky McGee

Vicky McGee, the wife of Andy and mother of Charlie, does not exactly have the most substantial part to play in Firestarter, as her segment of the story is almost entirely limited to the first act – but it has an interesting legacy due to the fact that Heather Locklear made her big screen debut playing the role in the 1983 adaptation, and Justine Lupe would make a smart fit for the new take. Stephen King fans best know her from her turn as Holly Gibney in Mr. Mercedes, but she’s also shown great range with performances on Succession and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It’s easy to imagine her pairing well with Zac Efron as Vicky and Andy go through the experimental trial that winds up giving them psychic powers, which they then eventually pass on to their daughter.

Anthony LaPaglia (A Good Marriage) As Irv Manders

To me, Anthony LaPaglia will always be youth-inspiring music store owner Joe Reaves in Empire Records, and while that’s a performance far removed from his turn as serial killer Bob Anderson in A Good Marriage, reflections on it make him an ideal fit to play Irv Manders. It’s not an overly complex role, but Irv is the kind of genial guy who is willing to take in a father and daughter on the run from government agents and protect them with his life even after he discovers their powerful secrets. This is another instance where it’s easy to envision key scenes, in this case, the one where Andy confesses what’s really going on with him and Charlie as The Shop closes in.

Mare Winningham (The Outsider, Under The Dome) As Norma Manders

Casting an amiable Irv Manders requires also casting an amiable Norma Manders, his wife, and Stephen King veteran Mare Winningham would make a perfect choice for the role. Unlike LaPaglia, the actor’s past King work is exactly why I thought of her for this part, as I instantly brought to mind the scene in The Outsider when she is brought in by her character’s husband to help a young girl more openly discuss an interaction she had with the show’s central villain. That spirit is exactly what Norma needs in Firestarter, making her an ideal fit. (Bonus Stephen King fact: in addition to her TV work, Winningham also does the audiobook narration for the excellent Lisey’s Story.)

Samuel L. Jackson (1408, Cell) As Dr. Joseph Wanless

Rounding out the cast with Dr. Joseph Wanless, the psychologist who runs the original trial experiment on Andy and Vicky, I think this would be a great opportunity for Samuel L. Jackson to make his third Stephen King adaptation after 1408 and Cell. While the character in Firestarter begins as a curious scientist, revelations about Charlie McGee’s abilities have a massive impact on him, as he becomes convinced that to allow her to live means risking the possibility of her cracking the world in half when she gets in a volatile mood. To get the appropriate intensity, why not go to one of the most intense actors in the business?

What do you think of these picks? Within the same parameters, do you have other picks for the key roles in Firestarter? Hit the comments section with your own selections, and be sure to stay tuned for future updates about the developing Zac Efron movie!

As many Stephen King adaptations have been made over the years, it’s actually surprising how few of them have been television series. We’ve seen plenty of feature films, TV movies, and miniseries, but you can count the number of straight-up shows on your fingers: 2002’s The Dead Zone, 2004's Kingdom Hospital, 2010’s Haven, 2013’s Under The Dome, 2017’s The Mist and Mr. Mercedes, 2018’s Castle Rock, and 2020’s The Outsider.

It’s not an easy thing to complain about just given the quantity of adaptations we’ve seen going back to the mid-1970s, but the truth is that there are plenty of characters who could easily be the subject of their own on-going network, cable, or streaming program – and I’ve filled this feature with proof of that fact.

Taking into consideration both leads and supporting characters from Stephen King’s novels and shorts, here are eight characters who would make for great leads of their very own television shows.

Holly Gibney (Mr. Mercedes, The Outsider, et al.)

As illustrated in the image above, Holly Gibney has already had a fair amount of exposure on television, having been played by Justine Lupe and Cynthia Erivo in Mr. Mercedes and The Outsider, respectively, but in both of those cases the full-on protagonist roles were played by Brendan Gleeson’s Bill Hodges and Ben Mendelsohn’s Ralph Anderson. Holly, however, could easily hold the spotlight herself, and we’d love to see it. Her profession as a private investigator lends itself to both serialized and episodic plots, and Stephen King’s short story If It Bleeds (part of the eponymous collection that was released in 2019) could even be the launching pad for the show. And while it wouldn’t be strictly necessary, bringing back either Lupe or Erivo to make it operate as a spin-off (given that both Mr. Mercedes and The Outsider have been cancelled) would be a great bonus.

Mike Enslin (1408)

Like “Private Investigator,” “Paranormal Researcher” is a profession that very much lends itself to serial storytelling, and Mike Enslin from the short story 1408 could make for a compelling protagonist of his own series – being a kind of all-in-one Mulder and Scully. The series could create a whole host of Stephen King-esque cases for him to investigate, but to add a bit of extra fun into the mix creators could even have the show try and pull a bit of a Castle Rock-like move and have Enslin come in to investigate all varieties of mysteries within the Stephen King canon, from the creepiness of the Marsten House in Jerusalem’s Lot, to Carrie White’s high school, to Gartley's Blue Ribbon Laundry service from The Mangler (getting the rights to do everything in that approach would probably be exceedingly difficult, but I’m just using my imagination here).

Roland Deschain (The Dark Tower Series)

Of all the suggestions made in this feature, this is the one that has come closest to actually happening… but right now the idea for a series based on The Dark Tower is sadly going nowhere. There were developments that continued for years after the release of the feature-length flop in 2017, but all progress halted in early 2020 when Amazon Studios decided not to move forward with the project. It’s a serious shame, as Stephen King has created an epic roadmap for what could be an incredible live-action series, but nobody has been able to figure out a way to do it yet. It’s unclear at this point what it might take, as we’ve some incredibly talented filmmakers and stars attached to the property over the years, but there’s hope everlasting that eventually somebody will get it made.

David Drayton (The Mist)

Most of the ideas featured here are for projects that would best operate independently from past adaptations of Stephen King’s works, but this is a particular case where it would be great to see a continuation of a story already told. We’ve already seen a remake-like approach taken for a television series based on The Mist via the 2017 series that aired on Spike, but this idea would operate as more of a sequel. It’s widely accepted that the horrifically dark ending of Frank Darabont’s The Mist is vastly superior to what the author originally wrote, and it could be fascinating to see what happened to Thomas Jane’s David Drayton years later as he lives with the extreme guilt of what he has done – perhaps at the same time as long-term effects of Project Arrowhead begin to rear up in New England.

Marty Coslaw (Cycle Of The Werewolf)

Stephen King has a phenomenal knack for writing young characters, be it the members of the Losers Club in IT, Gordie LaChance & Co. in The Body, and Patricia McFarland in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Marty Coslaw, the hero of Cycle Of The Werewolf, is an underrated member of that particular group, and while he has gotten the live-action treatment before, played by Corey Haim in Silver Bullet, he’s a character that could easily be put at the center of his own series. Though he is a paraplegic, he doesn’t let his disability hold him back in any way, and as compelling as it is to follow his investigation of the werewolf that is using his hometown as a hunting ground, it could easily be just as compelling to see him solve a variety of other monstrous mysteries plaguing his town along with his ever-annoyed teenage sister and wild Uncle Al.

Clyde Umney (Umney’s Last Case)

Like Holly Gibney, Clyde Umney is another private investigator character that can have new stories regularly show up on his doorstep in the form of clients – but there’s a particular twist in Umney’s Last Case that could make a series fascinating: he’s a protagonist who comes to the understanding that he is a fictional character when the author who created him, named Landry, writes himself into the story. It’s a great short, but a series could be even better – offering the possibility to do a deep meta dive into the core nature of storytelling. There is already some great history for Umney on the small screen, as William H. Macy earned an Emmy nomination playing him in an episode of the anthology Nightmares & Dreamscapes, but there’s a great deal more that could be done with the concept.

Charlene "Charlie" McGee (Firestarter)

Stephen King’s Firestarter ultimately leaves Charlene "Charlie" McGee in a very vulnerable place. After having entirely destroyed The Shop with her pyrokinesis abilities, she first goes on the run, and then makes the decision to expose the government operation by telling her story to the press. But what then? Admittedly this is ground that was previously approached in 2002 with the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Firestarter: Rekindled, but with more modern sensibilities and visual effects, not to mention a better budget, there exists the potential to make something much, much better. Plus, considering that a Firestarter remake is in the works with Zac Efron as Charlie’s father, Andy McGee, in the coming years there might be an opportunity to even have that specific continuity expand with a sequel series.

Alan Pangborn (The Dark Half, Needful Things, et al.)

As much as I enjoyed Castle Rock, I also think it’s a show that unfortunately squandered a character with awesome potential in its first season. Alan Pangborn does play a key role, played by the great Scott Glenn, but he’s also relegated to being a supporting character when he could be an amazing protagonist in his own show. I’ve pitched the idea of doing a straight small screen adaptation of Needful Things before, which is Stephen King’s perfect Pangborn story, but that could be just the first run of episodes in a series that chronicles his time as sheriff in one of the strangest and spookiest towns in America, ever haunted by the death of his wife and son in a tragic car crash.

Abra Stone (Doctor Sleep)

If I were writing this feature eight years ago I might have felt inspired to suggest a series chronicling the life of Dan Torrence after the events of The Shining, but considering that Doctor Sleep does that so masterfully I can instead promote the idea of continuing that story instead with a show centered on Abra Stone. The way she utilizes her gifts throughout the Stephen King sequel story is fascinating, and they could evolve even further with a dedicated series taking place in the aftermath of her showdown with Rose The Hat and the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel. It seems entirely possible that Rose wasn’t the last of her kind and that the True Knot lives on, presenting an ever-looming threat to her safety, but that could just be the starting place as Abra uncovers a much bigger world than anyone else on Earth actually knows about.

What do you think of the idea of crafting television shows around these Stephen King characters? Are there other protagonists or supporting players that you think we’ve overlooked in the building of this feature? Hit the comments section with your thoughts and ideas, and, as ever, be on the lookout for more of our King film and television coverage here on CinemaBlend!

The Stephen King brand has been red hot ever since Andy Muschietti's IT became a massive blockbuster when it launched into theaters a couple years ago, and it's been incredibly exciting to watch the development of various adaptations get the green light and go on the fast track. The latest to apparently make this move is the upcoming remake of Firestarter that Blumhouse has had in the works for a few years now, as the film has found one of its main stars: Zac Efron.

Per a press release from Universal Pictures, Zac Efron has signed on to star in Firestarter, and while his specific role in the movie isn't mentioned, he will presumably be playing Andrew McGee, a young father who is forced to go on the run with his gifted daughter when they are hunted by a government agency known as "The Shop." The new adaptation is being directed by Keith Thomas, and the screenplay is being written by Halloween Kills co-writer Scott Teems.

In Stephen King's novel, the story begins when Andrew McGee meets his future wife, Vicky, as college students who are enrolled in an experiment involving a chemical called LOT-6. While most of those involved with the trial experience horrific side effects, both Andrew and Vicky develop psychic abilities: the latter can read people's minds, and the former has the ability to bend people to his will (what he calls "a push"). Years after the experiment they have a daughter named Charlie who turns out to have a power of her own, as she can telepathically make objects she focuses on so hot that they catch on fire (a.k.a. pyrokinesis). Andrew and Vicky do their best to hide Charlie's gifts, but there's only so long they can keep her a secret.

Director Mark L. Lester previously helmed an extremely faithful adaptation of Firestarter back in 1984, which was at the time just four years after the book was first published. The film stars David Keith in the role of Andrew McGee and Heather Locklear as Vicky (her feature film debut), but most notably features Drew Barrymore as young Charlie – meaning that there exists a tremendously high bar for the upcoming remake to clear when it comes to finding someone for the role. Now that the ball has started rolling for the casting department, it wouldn't be too surprising if we learn about the production's choice in the coming weeks.

If the thought of Zac Efron starring in a 1980s remake sounds familiar, that's because this is the second development of this ilk that we've seen in the last few months. Back in early August it was reported that he is now developing a reboot of Three Men And A Baby. At present it's not clear which project is moving faster through development or which Efron will be working on first.

Hopefully this is just the start of a flow of stories regarding the making of the new Firestarter, so be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest updates, and tell us what you think about the casting by hitting the comments section. To see what other Stephen King adaptations are currently in the works, be sure to check out our full guide to developing films, miniseries, and television shows.

Blumhouse has been on a tear as of late when it comes to horror movie remakes. With a franchise currently progressing on the back of its successful Halloween reboot, as well as its version of The Craft currently in production, Jason Blum’s production house of horrors is now set to reimagine yet another genre classic: Stephen King’s novel Firestarter.

With a remake of the film adaptation in the works for the past couple of years, the studio has made some moves to bring the project back into active duty. And chiefly among them is selecting director Keith Thomas to take over the directing duties for this new Firestarter, which is a pretty big change.

Previously, director Faith Akin was selected to oversee Blumhouse’s new version of the 1984 Drew Barrymore classic. But as anyone will tell you, the road to production is rarely ever easy or set in stone. However, it sounds like not only is the Firestarter remake an active concern with the studio, it looks like it’s going to be one of its next films in production.

According to Collider’s report on his drafting, Keith Thomas has been selected to direct Firestarter presumably off the back of his directorial debut, The Vigil, which released earlier this year. Halloween Kills' Scott Teems is still on board the project as the writer who will retell the story of a young girl with the gift of telekinesis and her quest to evade capture by the government that created her.

That could lead to the assumption that the script for Firestarter’s next theatrical round is already locked, and only in need of a little tightening. Pair that with a new director hired for the project and Blumhouse’s insane ability to make a film under the radar in a quick period of turnaround, and you’ve got a film that could hit theaters anywhere between 2020 and 2021.

Much like Blumhouse's other efforts in resurrecting classic horror films at Universal, Firestarter will presumably bring this story into the modern age. But even more impressive is the fact that this project is the first Stephen King property that Blumhouse has tackled. So if the master of horror himself enjoys this new effort as he has other films like IT or Doctor Sleep, there could be a chance that we’ll see more King remakes coming from producer Jason Blum.

If that doesn’t sound like a dream team of horror, then you’re probably a more restrained horror fan who doesn’t let such news push them into a frenzy. Still, even if you’re not prone to hyperbole, the Stephen King/Jason Blum pairing is something that definitely will be worth keeping an eye on.

There’s no release date or production start date specified for Firestarter, but you can see Blumhouse’s remake magic at work with Black Christmas, which is currently in theaters. And if you’re looking for more of what’s coming to theaters in 2020, take a look at our release calendar for the coming year!

Thanks to the unprecedented success of IT last year, Stephen King's horror properties have never been hotter for cinematic adaptation, and objectively none of the author's works is hotter than Firestarter. The novel was first adapted for the big screen with a 1984 film starring a young Drew Barrymore. A remake of Firestarter has been discussed for years now, but things really began to gain some traction last year when the project was officially announced. There hasn't been much news on Firestarter since then, but now the remake is finally moving forward with Fatih Akin being tapped to direct.

Fatih Akin most recently directed In the Fade, which took home a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. When the remake was announced last year at the Overlook Film Festival, Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the script for The Dark Tower, was set to direct the film. While that has obviously changed, Akiva Goldsman is still onboard as producer alongside Blumhouse Productions' Jason Blum. Scott Teems, who wrote and directed episodes of the acclaimed TV series Rectify, will adapt the script for the Universal and Blumhouse.

As Variety notes in the director report, the success of IT has studios fast-tracking their Stephen King properties and for Universal, Firestarter has been in development for a while and was the most ready get started. For those who never saw the 1984 original or read the book, Firestarter tells the story of a young girl named Charlie who develops pyrokinetic abilities and is pursued by a secret government agency, called The Shop that wants to use her as a weapon. If you think that sounds similar to Stranger Things, Charlie's parents also participated in The Shop's experiments with LSD and gained powers that caused nosebleeds. So yeah, you can definitely see where the Netflix series mined some of its nostalgic story from. It also makes sense with the popularity of that series and the resurgence in Stephen King properties of late,how Firestarter might seem especially appealing for audiences in the current marketplace.

The original Firestarter is not considered to be one of the better Stephen King adaptations, so this remake provides a great opportunity to do the sci-fi thriller justice. As demonstrated with IT last year and many titles in the ongoing horror renaissance, when the material is taken seriously, horror can provide wins both critically and commercially. Differentiating itself from other similar stories about kids with powers and shadowy government agencies is where Firestarter will have to be creative.

A release date for the remake of Firestarter has not been set, but we'll keep you updated when we hear more and casting gets underway. To see all of the upcoming Stephen King movies, check out our guide. For all the latest in movie news and why you shouldn't play with fire, stay tuned to CinemaBlend.

The love affair between Hollywood and the work of Stephen King has existed for more than 40 years now. In 1976 Brian De Palma introduced the world to his version of Carrie, and since then filmmakers have been working constantly to bring King's special vision into live action. As you would expect from any author, it's a mixed bag of results, with some films being incredible cinematic achievements and others being sincere disappointments -- but one thing that many of them happen to have in common is that you find a way to stream and watch them online.

Literally hundreds of Stephen King adaptations exist -- the bulk being short films, straight-to-video features and built for television -- but we are here to talk specifically about the movies. There are 39 big screen takes on King's work currently available to stream across Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and HBO, and you can find our full breakdown of the market below and across the next few pages. Read on, and happy watching!

Carrie (1976)

It's only fitting that it was Stephen King's first novel, Carrie, that was his first adapted work. In this classic horror film, nominated for two Academy Awards, we follow the story of the titular young girl -- a shy and constantly abused high school student whose pain winds up spawning dangerous telekinetic gifts.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

The Shining (1980)

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is one of the more controversial Stephen King adaptations, as pretty much everyone in the world loves the film except for the author himself. In the movie, Jack Nicholson stars as Jack Torrance, a writer who moves his family to a secluded hotel in the mountains only to find himself driven mad by the isolation and demons that reside there.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Creepshow (1982)

George A. Romero's Creepshow is a slightly different entry than most on this list, in that it's not a Stephen King adaptation. Instead, it's the first screenplay that King ever wrote -- structured as an anthology film that tells five different creepy horror stories. Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen and more star.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Cujo (1983)

Cujo, directed by Lewis Teague, centers on the titular friendly, innocent St. Bernard... who stops being so friendly and innocent. After contracting rabies, the giant dog becomes crazy and lethal, and as a result begins to terrorize a small town. Horror icon Dee Wallace stars in the film.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

The Dead Zone (1983)

In 1983 it was David Cronenberg's turn to try out some Stephen King material, and wound up with the job adapting the 1977 novel The Dead Zone. Starring Christopher Walken, the movie follows an ordinary schoolteacher who awakens from a five year coma to discover that he has psychic abilities that spark any time he comes into contact with another person.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Christine (1983)

A teen getting their first car is a rite of passage, but it's one that turns deadly in 1983's Christine. John Carpenter took on this particular adaptation, which follows Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) as his life changes following the purchase of a beaten-up 1958 Plymouth Fury. He becomes completely obsessed with restoring the vehicle, but slowly discovers that "Christine" has a dangerous influence over him.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Children of the Corn (1984)

Fritz Kiersch's Children of the Corn is one the classic "kids are creepy," based on Stephen King's short story from 1977. The main narrative begins as a young couple (Linda Hamilton, Peter Horton) is driving cross-country to Seattle and gets in an accident while driving through Nebraska. What they are disturbed to discover, however, is that every adult in the area is dead, and that the local town is controlled by a child-run cult.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Netflix and Hulu, and rent on Amazon Video

Firestarter (1984)

In the years following her breakout role in E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, young Drew Barrymore doubled down on Stephen King in the mid-1980s, and the first up was Mark L. Lester's Firestarter. In it, Barrymore plays a girl born to telekinetic parents (Andy Keith, Heather Locklear) and develops pyrokinesis. Unfortunately, this makes her the target of a secret government agency, forcing her family on the run.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Cat's Eye (1985)

Lewis Teague's Cat's Eye was the second Stephen King film starring Drew Barrymore -- though this one is based on a King screenplay and is not an adaptation. Another anthology film, this movie features three separate stories linked together by the perspective of a stray cat in search of a little girl who is calling for help.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Silver Bullet (1985)

In the making of Dan Attias' Silver Bullet, Stephen King once again adapted his own work, writing the screenplay based on his novella Cycle of the Werewolf. Set in the mid-1970s and centering on a dysfunctional family, the movie chronicles the terror inflicted on a small town by a murderous werewolf, and sports an impressive cast that includes Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Corey Haim, and Terry O'Quinn.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Everybody knows Stephen King for his work in the horror genre, but he decided to up the laughs when he got behind the camera to make his directorial debut in 1986 with Maximum Overdrive. Starring Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, and Yeardley Smith, the adaptation of the short story Trucks is a sci-fi comedy set in a world where machines not only become sentient, but homicidal.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on HBO Go/HBO Now, and rent on Amazon Video

Stand By Me (1986)

Stephen King is not only immensely gifted at writing scares, but also younger characters -- and no piece of work demonstrates that better than Stand By Me. The first King adaptation from Rob Reiner, it's as classic as coming-of-age tales get, following four young boys (Will Sheton, Jerry O'Connell, River Phoenix and Corey Feldman) living in Oregon who go on a hike to find a dead body.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Creepshow 2 (1987)

As noted earlier, the first Creepshow allowed Stephen King to have his first attempt at a screenplay, but he had a bit less involvement with the sequel, Creepshow 2. The movie is once again an anthology feature, but rather than doing the script, King merely crafted the stories, and George A. Romero took care of the writing.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

A Return to Salem's Lot (1987)

Tobe Hooper's classic adaptation of Salem's Lot back in 1979 didn't qualify for this list because it aired on television first, but funny enough its sequel, Larry Cohen's A Return To Salem's Lot, does. While hardly acclaimed, this sequel starring Michael Moriarty follows a man and his son who find themselves vacationing in King's famously vampire-infested New England town.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

The Running Man (1987)

You wouldn't normally think that "Stephen King" and "Arnold Schwarzenegger" would be two pieces part of the same puzzle, but that's what they became in Paul Michael Graser's The Running Man. The movie is a futuristic vision of the year 2019 and follows a man framed for murder who is forced to compete on a violent game show called The Running Man and fight for his life.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Pet Sematary (1989)

Mary Lambert's Pet Sematary follows a young couple (Dale Midkiff, Denise Crosby) as they move to a new neighborhood, and find their lives struck by tragedy when their son (Miko Hughes) is killed. Unable to cope with the grief, they go against the warnings of their neighbor (Fred Gwynne) and bury the body in a cemetery where the dead are known to come back to life.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Hulu and Amazon Prime

Graveyard Shift (1990)

Not all Stephen King adaptations are real winners, and Graveyard Shift definitely isn't one of the better ones - telling the story of mysterious deaths during the late night shift at a textile mill. It probably isn't worth seeing under normal circumstances, but if you're aiming to watch every single Kind movie available, it's out there.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Misery (1990)

At the start of this classic horror from Rob Reiner, author Paul Sheldon (James Caan) thinks that he is the luckiest man in the world, having been rescued from a car crash by an adoring fan (Kathy Bates). This feeling quickly wears off, however, when he realizes that the woman has an extremely unhealthy attachment to his most famous protagonist, Misery Chastain, who he plans to kill off in his next book.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

*The Lawnmower Man (1992)

This one requires a bit of background -- which would explain the asterisk above. In 1975 Stephen King wrote a short story called The Lawnmower Man, and his name was originally credited on director Brett Leonard's 1992 film of the same name. Given the fact that the two narratives feature almost zero connection, King was able to successfully sue and get his name removed from the feature... but we've decided to include it here anyway.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Hulu and rent on Amazon Video

Sleepwalkers (1992)

When it comes to Stephen King adaptations, Mick Garris is perhaps better known for his small screen efforts (including 1994's The Stand and 1997's The Shining), but he got his first whack at the author's work in 1992 with the movie Sleepwalkers. Rather than being about people who shambolically move around while they are unconscious, this is a story about a pair of virgin-hungry vampire/werecats (Brian Krause, Alice Krige) who move their game to a small town in Indiana.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Children Of The Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)

Like Return To Salem's Lot, David Price's Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice is another film that did not have Stephen King in any way involved -- but since it's based on his work and available streaming, we felt obligated to include it. The movie is a direct sequel to the original from 1984, but this time centers on a reporter who is with his young son in town writing a story about the cut.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

The Dark Half (1993)

In this Stephen King adaptation from fellow horror legend George A. Romero, Timothy Hutton stars as Thad Beaumont: an amiable man and author famous for the pitch black sensibilities in his work. What Thad doesn't realize, however, is that this darkness comes straight from his legit alter ego, George Stark, and George grows tired of playing second fiddle.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Hulu and Amazon Prime

Needful Things (1993)

Top billed by Max von Sydow and Ed Harris, Fraser C. Heston's adaptation of Needful Things is set in a small town where a strange older man opens up a new shop. While he seems to offer something that everyone in town needs and charges very little, the cost also involves each person playing a "joke" on a neighbor -- and it's this that winds up leading the burb to devolve into chaos.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Hailed by many as one of the greatest films of the late 20th century, Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption tells the epic story of an innocent man (Tim Robbins) who is sent away to prison for murdering his wife, and learns to adjust to life behind bars with the help of a fellow inmate (Morgan Freeman).

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

Kathy Bates did amazing work with Stephen King material in Misery, but she has said that her turn in Taylor Hackford's Dolores Claiborne is the performance of her own that she loves most. In the movie, she plays the titular character who is a maid accused of killing her elderly employer, and while the story reveals through flashbacks the events as they unfolded, it also explores the strained relationship she has with her daughter (Jennifer Jason Leigh).

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Thinner (1996)

Tom Holland, best known as the director of Fright Night and Child's Play, got his first crack at a Stephen King story with Thinner in 1996. Robert John Burke stars as an obese lawyer who finds himself cursed after hitting a gypsy woman with his car. Rapidly becoming skinnier and skinnier, he must find a way to reverse the spell before withering away into nothing.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Apt Pupil (1998)

In 1998, director Bryan Singer adapted Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil as his follow-up to the Oscar-winning The Usual Suspects. In the story, a high school student (Brad Renfro) discovers that one of his neighbors (Ian McKellen) is a Nazi war criminal who is a fugitive and has been living in hiding.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

Arriving a full 33 years after the first Carrie, director Katt Shea's The Rage: Carrie 2 reveals that Stephen King's famed protagonist had a half-sister, Rachel Lang (Emily Bergl), who also possesses telekinetic abilities and uses them to get revenge. It should be noted that King had nothing to do with this notorious flop.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Hulu

The Green Mile (1999)

In the second Stephen King adaptation from Frank Darabont, audiences are taken to back to 1933 and the events on the Green Mile -- the nickname for Death Row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary. The story follows the guards who work there and their encounters with a prisoner named John Coffey, a giant convicted of murdering two children who they learn possesses a supernatural and beautiful gift.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Hearts in Atlantis (2001)

It was only in summer 2017 that The Dark Tower finally got its own adaptation, but in 2001 one of Stephen King's tie-in books did make it to the big screen. Scott Hicks' Hearts In Atlantis is about a single mother (Hope Davis) and young son (Anton Yelchin) who find their lives mysteriously begin to change with the arrival of an enigmatic man named Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins).

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Dreamcatcher (2003)

Lawrence Kasdan's Dreamcatcher is one of the more controversial Stephen King adaptations - and sadly it's not for any good reasons. All the same, the feature puts together a talented ensemble, uniting Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Timothy Olyphant and Jason Lee as a group of friends on a hunting trip who wind up in a terrifying showdown with a parasitic alien.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Secret Window (2004)

Stephen King sure does love having authors as protagonists, and David Koepp's Secret Window is one of many examples. In this one, Johnny Depp plays a recently-divorced author who finds himself terrorized by a man named John Shooter (John Turturro). Shooter claims that Rainey's story, "Secret Window," is plagiarized from a story of his own, and is willing to go to extreme lengths to get justice.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Riding The Bullet (2004)

In yet another Stephen King adaptation from director Mick Garris, Jonathan Jackson stars as a young man trying to hitchhike to the hospital so that he can be at his dying mother's bedside, but it leads him to serious trouble when he is picked up by an odd stranger (David Arquette) who forces him to make a terrible choice. Riding The Bullet is hardly one of the most acclaimed King movies out there, but it is out there.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

1408 (2007)

John Cusack stars in Mikael Håfström's 1408 as a professional "debunker" -- an author who investigates reported hauntings and exposes them as frauds. He begins to doubt everything he's ever believed, however, when he arrives at the Dolphin Hotel and the hotel manager (Samuel L. Jackson) brings him to the famed and notorious room 1408.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Hulu and rent on Amazon Video

The Mist (2007)

The third Stephen King feature adaptation from Frank Darabont, The Mist is set in a sleepy town that finds itself overtaken by a mysterious fog that brings with it a variety of horrifying monsters. A group of neighbors try to survive by holing up in a local supermarket, but discover that their own natures may be just as dangerous as the creatures outside.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Carrie (2013)

With the Carrie brand somewhat tainted by the flop sequel, director Kimberly Peirce tried to bring it back to life in 2013 with a new remake of the classic story. Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore star in the roles previously made iconic by Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, respectively.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

A Good Marriage (2014)

Stephen King doesn't make a regular habit of adapting his own work. In fact, he has only done it twice. The first was the aforementioned Pet Sematary, and the second is Peter Askin's A Good Marriage. In it, Joan Allen stars as a woman who discovers a terrifying secret about her husband (Anthony LaPaglia), and must do what she can to try and keep it buried.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to rent on Amazon Video

Mercy (2014)

Stephen King wrote the horror short Gramma back in 1984, but it wasn't until 30 years later that it found its way to the big screen. Starring Frances O'Connor, Chandler Riggs, Joel Courtney and Shirley Knight, Mercy follows a single mother and her two sons as they go to visit their grandmother -- who they are surprised to learn wields mystical powers.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Netflix and rent on Amazon Video

Gerald's Game (2017)

In Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's Gerald's Game, Carla Gugino stars as Jesse -- a woman who goes on a vacation to her summer house with her husband (Bruce Greenwood) in hopes of spicing up their love life. Unfortunately, her husband dies of a heart attack after handcuffing her to the bed, and she must find some way to survive without being able to move.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Netflix

In this Zac Hilditch-written and directed adaptation of the short story of the same name by Stephen King, Tom Jane stars as Wilfred James, a rancher living in the titular year, 1922. Along with his teenage son, Henry (Dylan Schmid), he hatches a plan to try and kill his wife in hopes of stopping her from selling his farm from out underneath him. The movie made its debut to critical-acclaim at Fantastic Fest in September 2017, and was the second original King adaptation to hit Netflix in October 2017 after Gerald's Game.

Where You Can Stream It: Available to stream on Netflix

Stephen King has been an acclaimed author for over 40 years, and his stories have made excellent material for movie and TV adaptations for almost that same amount of time. 2017 has been an especially good year for King, as The Dark Tower movie was released last month and the IT movie is arriving in theaters next month, while on the TV side of things, Mr. Mercedes and The Mist aired on Audience and Spike, respectively. King fans can expect many more of his novels and short stories to be adapted in the coming years, but if King has his way, he'll soon have complete control again of the licenses for the movies The Dead Zone, Cujo, Creep Show, Children of the Corn, Cat's Eye and Firestarter.

It was recently discovered that around this time last year, Stephen King mailed notices to terminate the transfer of his licenses for movies based on those six tales. These termination notices will go into effect on September 1, 2018, and once that happens, King will have the full rights to The Dead Zone, Cujo, Creep Show, Children of the Corn, Cat's Eye and Firestarter. As Zerner Law explained, when the Sonny Bono Copyright Act passed in 1998, there was a provision that allowed any authors to terminate transfers of copyright 35 years after the specific work's publication.

As a result, if any studio wants to remake one of these stories or put out a sequel to them, they'll have to go directly to King to strike a new deal. However, any "derivative works" that were in development before the termination can still be released after that date has passed. This termination also only affects U.S. rights, so conceivably a studio could still make a movie based on one of these stories that simply wouldn't be be screened in the United States.

Of the six Stephen Kings works that are part of this license termination, there are remakes of Cujo and Firestarter already in development. The Cujo remake was announced back in 2015, although this version will be titled as an acronym, with C.U.J.O. standing for "Canine Unit Joint Operations." Lang Elliot is attached as director and writer. The Firestarter remake was reported as being in the works over at Blumhouse back in April, with Akiva Goldsman set to direct and co-write the new version. There is also another direct-to-video Children of the Corn movie in the works titled Runaway, but it's important to mention that series is currently wrapped up in legal trouble, as producer Donald Borchers filed a lawsuit against The Weinstein Company that claims he owns the sequel rights to Children of the Corn, not the studio.

If none of these projects are able to make any significant progress by the time Stephen King's termination notices kick in, then that will wipe the slate clean, thus allowing new parties to pitch their versions of these stories to King directly. Rest assured, we'll keep you updated on how all things Stephen King are coming along in the realm of movies and television when more updates trickle in.

The work of Stephen King seems to go through cycles of popularity. Right now we're in one of his "hot" periods as several of his works are being made into films. Some, like The Dark Tower, are seeing the screen for the first time, while others, like It are being remade. We can now add Firestarter to the remake list. First turned into a feature film in 1984 that starred a young Drew Barrymore, Universal is now planning to remake the project with Akiva Goldsman behind the camera.

The announcement was made during the Overlook Film Festival, a fitting location to announce a Stephen King project, as the site was used for scenes in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. According to Deadline, production duties will be shared by Universal, who had the original film rights, and Blumhouse, the horror focused producer responsible for 2017 hits Split and Get Out. Scott Teems is working on the script. Akiva Goldsman, who most recently wrote the script for the big screen adaptation of The Dark Tower, is on board to direct the Firestarter remake.

Stephen King's Firestarter tells the story of a couple who undergo government experiments with LSD that give them psychic powers. The couple then gives birth to Charlie, a girl who manifests powerful pyrokinetic powers. The government agency, called The Shop, want to harness these powers as weapons, sending Charlie on the run.

It's far from surprising to see a plan for a Firestarter remake. The buzz for It, which is seeing it's second adaptation, first for the big screen, is pretty strong right now and that can be chalked up to people who both love King's original novel, as well as those only familiar with the Tim Curry, led TV movie. Firestarter wasn't a huge hit when the original film was released in 1984. In it's opening weekend it placed third at the box office, right behind Breakin' so that probably tells you all you need to know. Having said that, over the years many have seen it and when people think of Drew Barrymore's child acting years, the two films that likely comes to mind are E.T. and this one. The name is known, even if the previous film isn't particularly loved.

This isn't the first time that Universal has tried to bring back Firestarter. A plan to turn the name into a major franchise never got off the ground several years ago, so there's no guarantee this one will fair any better, though it doesn't appear there are any specific plans here beyond making one movie, so that might make things easier.

No release date was given so we don't know what the timetable is for the new Firestarter but clearly, with a writer and director on board, the next thing the film needs is an actress to play the lead. We'll let you know who that's going to be as soon as we know.

Back in the 1980s people had a really bad habit of making adaptations of every Stephen King book. Sure, we all remember The Shining, Stand By Me, and Pet Sematary as success stories, but not all of them were exactly immediate classics. One such movie was Firestarter, a film starring a very young Drew Barrymore as a a young girl who can set fires with her mind. The movie was a one-off, making only a little more than its budget back at the box office, but modern day producers don't see things like that.

Variety reports that Universal is now planning to bring back the King property and, what's more, they're planning to turn it into a franchise. Mark L. Smith, who wrote the 2007 Luke Wilson-Kate Beckinsale starrer Vacancy, will write the script adaptation. The new movie is expected to be loosely based on the original King story, with the lead character "reinvented with a little more edge."

While Firestarter is a project that people probably won't slit their wrists over when they hear its being remade, I must say that the whole "more edge" thing does trouble me a bit. When you consider that Barrymore was only nine when the first film was made, this makes me think that they are planning on raising the character's age (what kid under 10 do you know with "edge"?) which just can't be good. Sure, there have been some crappy Stephen King adaptations over the years, but let's hope that they aren't planning to make a Twilight-like series with the word "vampire" replaced by "pyrokinetic". The world just doesn't need that right now.