Everything old is new again, as the saying goes, and when it comes to Stephen King adaptations, they're so numerous that everything new is old and then new again and... look, all we're saying is that the repeat movies are growing in number and this Blumhouse-produced Firestarter is the latest. Check out the first trailer, featuring Zac Efron and Sydney Lemmon.
The Vigil's Keith Thomas directs here, working from a script adapted by Halloween Kills' Scott Teems. King's fiery 1980 tale was, you'll recall, brought to screens before in 1984.
The story runs as follows: For more than a decade, parents Andy (Efron) and Vicky (Lemmon) have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction.
Andy has taught Charlie how to defuse her power, which is triggered by anger or pain. But as Charlie turns 11, the fire becomes harder and harder to control. After an incident reveals the family’s location, a mysterious operative (Michael Greyeyes) is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie, unsurprisingly, has other plans. And she means to bring them... FIRE. (Because otherwise, why call it Firestarter?)
With Kurtwood Smith, John Beasley and Gloria Reuben also in the cast, this new Firestarter arrives Stateside in cinemas and via streaming service Peacock on 13 May, but doesn't seem to have a locked down UK date yet (the UK trailer only says "in cinemas soon").