Stephen King stories are a hot commodity right now, and there are a few that are under development other than Firestarter, but apparently King has actually approved the script to this idea and it might begin at some point by picking up with the original story and remaking the classic as Charlie and her father go on the run after the murder of her mother. How it will differ, since this is kind of expected, and how close it will remain to the source material is hard to say since updating it will be necessary given that trying to keep everything back in the 80s might be a mistake. It will also be far harder for Charlie and her father Andy to simply disappear and stay on the run in the current era thanks to the technology that’s now available. But the story itself should be easy to leave intact since the whole idea of an experimental drug that could grant psychic abilities to those that take it would be nice to see. If we can accept a movie like Lucy then it should be simple to think that LOT-6 should be a feasible plot point that can be used again as it was back in 1984.
What would be nice is to see something along the lines of the other participants having children that are kind of like Charlie, since in 2002 there was a miniseries made titled Firestarter 2: Rekindled. Despite the dubious idea to bring back John Rainbird, the assassin that was sent to kill Charlie and her father, it was still interesting since it pitted a slightly older Charlie against several other young kids that had been experimented on and had developed different abilities. One of them was an energy sink, a child that literally subsisted on and could drain the energy from pretty much anything and anyone. He could suck the vitality from a human being and still be ‘hungry’. Pitting him against an individual such as Charlie was bound to be a good fight, but in the true fashion of a miniseries, it was a bit anticlimactic since Charlie ended up winning since her power was both greater and the energy sink kid had a defined limit that he couldn’t overcome. One has to remember that in the book, Charlie’s powers are predicted to be great enough that she could crack the planet in half if she so desired, and even as a child she was capable of holding off several grown agents as her pyrokinesis was so intensely power that it didn’t cause her any pain and was able to be summoned pretty easily. Plus, with enough practice and enough of a reason, Charlie eventually felt no need to hold back and immolated whoever stood in her way, if they were intent on hurting her. Imagine a kid with that kind of power, and imagine what the effects of today could make happen.
This is after a girl that can ignite the air around her and turn it into a weapon, so someone like that should be seen as one of the most dangerous individuals alive. With enough control, one can only imagine what Charlie might be capable of, especially since as she grows older it’s likely that she’ll be able to control those powers to a degree that would make her even more dangerous. A movie such as this needs the right effects, the right cast, and most definitely the right director. Anything less and it might as well be another miniseries since to be realistic, this is one of the movies that need to go big or stay home and work it out with whoever is willing to go the extra mile and make it great. The story itself is something that might feel like it belongs in a comic book at times, but when stripped down to the bare bones it might be worked into something that is nothing less than great since King put together a very compelling tale that is a little unlike his other stories but is still fun to read since it puts the kind of power that some might call godlike into the hands of a young girl that has to learn how to control herself at an early age and is more or less forced to be careful with her temper. Think of the kind of control the Hulk needs, and then imagine that level of control slipping with someone that could burn a town or city to the ground with little effort.
There’s no release date or even production date for the Firestarter remake as of yet, but you can bet that people are going to be watching very closely for this movie to start production. When that happens you can expect plenty of updates. Out of the many movies that are in development, this is one of those that really needs to be made.
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