‘Firestarter’: Stephen King Classic Reignites With Universal, Blumhouse & Akiva Goldsman Directing
Stephen King’s classic Firestarter will be ablaze on the big screen again in a remake with Oscar winner Akiva Goldsman behind the camera. Goldsman and Blumhouse’s Jason Blum announced the news tonight during the Overlook Film Festival at Timberline Lodge in Mt. Hood, OR, following the opening-night premiere of their latest collaboration Stephanie which Goldsman directed.
In Firestarter, a young girl develops pyrokinetic abilities and is abducted by a secret government agency that wants to harness her powerful gift as a weapon.
Universal is also involved in development with Blumhouse and Goldsman as the studio released the first feature adaptation of the film in May 1984; it starred Drew Barrymore and was directed by Mark L. Lester. Firestarter will rep the fifth time Goldsman has worked with Blumhouse following his EP duties on Paranormal Activity 2, 3 and 4 as well as Stephanie. Scott Teems (Rectify) will write the new Firestarter adaptation. Blum under his Blumhouse label will produce. Martha de Laurentiis, an associate producer on the 1984 version, will serve as executive producer.
Talk about the appropriate setting to announce tonight’s news: Timberline Lodge is where Stanley Kubrick shot the hotel exteriors for his big-screen version of King’s The Shining.
The Firestarter news comes on the heels of a fantastic 2017 for Blumhouse, which has reaped close to $500 million worldwide from both Split and Get Out off combined negative costs under $15M.
King’s books have sold more than 350M copies worldwide. In September, Warner Bros/New Line is releasing the long-awaited feature adaptation of King’s It; the trailer following its drop at CinemaCon set a 24-hour global record with close to 200 million views back in March.
Goldsman co-wrote the script to King’s The Dark Tower which Sony is releasing this summer. The A Beautiful Mind Oscar-winning scribe also has a story-by credit on Paramount’s Transformers: The Last Knight, also out this summer. Goldsman has supervised Paramount’s writers room for their revamps of Hasbro properties Transformers , G.I. Joe and Mircronauts.
Goldsman is repped by WME and Hansen, Jacobson. Teems is repped by Paradigm, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Sloane, Offer.
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