It’s not as though he ever left, but it’s hard to dispute the claim that Stephen King has returned to the forefront of pop culture with a vengeance over the past year or so. Stranger Things became a cultural phenomenon last year while drawing heavy influences from the author, and 11.22.63 did a fine job in adapting one of the author’s most labyrinthe novels. That’s to say nothing of all the upcoming stuff: a TV series based on The Mist, that terrifying-looking first part to It due in September, Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Gerald’s Game for Netflix. And maybe even The Dark Tower, if that’s actually still being released in August and isn’t just an elaborate Sony hoax at this point.
You could say that it’s good to be King these days, and indeed we will. There’s still nothing quite like a great film adaptation of a King novel, and now another title has joined the fray, albeit a familiar one: Firestarter.
King’s 1980 novel previously earned a film treatment in 1984, with Drew Barrymore in the starring role of a young girl who develops pyrokinesis as the result of acid tests previously run on her parents. It’s an interesting choice considering the story’s numerous similarities to Stranger Things, but Deadline has reported that Blumhouse and Universal will be spearheading the production of the remake, with Akiva Goldsman slated to direct.
Goldsman recently wrapped the Blumhouse feature Stephanie, marking only his second outing as director despite a wealth of producing and screenwriting credits. (For the record, his first feature was 2014’s Winter’s Tale, which is not a good movie, but is a baffling curiosity of the highest order for those of you who enjoy a great bad movie.) It’s unclear if the director will also pen the Firestarter remake, but Goldsman has written films as good as A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man, and as bad as both of Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies and Insurgent. He’s also one of four credited writers on The Dark Tower, so at least he’s spent a fair deal of his recent time in King’s world.
If somehow, some way, you made it through the whole of this article without getting some Prodigy stuck in your head, enjoy:
