The new adaptation of Stephen King’s beloved Firestarter is almost here. Today, Universal Pictures and Blumhouse have unveiled the official trailer for their fresh take on the 1980 novel, which stars Zac Efron as a father who must keep his daughter’s pyrokinetic powers under wraps. The studio also confirmed that the film will be released simultaneously in theaters and on Peacock on May 13th.
In the new film, Andy (Efron) and Vicky (Succession’s Sydney Lemmon) are parents to Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), an 11-year-old girl who creates fire when she feels anger or pain. This gift is a point of interest for a shadowy federal agency that wants to use Charlie to create weapons of mass destruction.
Andy has helped Charlie hide her powers for most of her life, but when the family’s location is inadvertently revealed, they become the subject of a sinister operative who tries to seize Charlie and use her firestarting abilities for evil.
Firestarter is directed by Keith Thomas from a screenplay by Scott Teems. It marks the second feature-length adaptation of King’s novel, the first being the 1984 version with Drew Barrymore as Charlie. Watch the trailer below.
Firestarter marks another thematically-dark turn for Efron; back in 2019, he played serial killer Ted Bundy in Netflix’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. In more King adaptation news, Lucy Liu will star in a limited series adapted from Later, a novel King released last year.
