Director Keith Thomas is finally getting ready to release his horror film, The Vigil, in the U.S. However, he is already looking forward to his next project, a new adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter. In a recent interview with Zavvi he gave some details on the upcoming rework of King’s novel.
The new screenplay for Firestarter was penned by Halloween Kills co-writer Scott Teems. A script that Thomas says has everything you could want in a script.
“The screenplay is by Scott Teems who wrote the upcoming Halloween Kills, it’s an amazing script. It has everything you would want, people’s heads catching fire and their faces melting off, and a dad and daughter on the run trying to survive being chased in this heightened tense experience. We are hoping to film it this year, and it will be a lot of fun.”
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Firestarter the 1980 novel and the 1984 film were centered around a young girl who develops Pyrokinesis, an ability to control fire. Once a government agency discovers her powers, she is abducted in an attempt to harness her gift as a weapon.
Thomas says that “when Jason [Blum] pitched it to me it was exciting, as that’s one of my favorite Stephen King novels, and whilst I really like the 1980’s film, I felt we could do something new.”
Even though King is not officially working on the production of the new adaptation, Thomas says he is still very much involved but only “to a certain extent.”
“He watched The Vigil, approved me as director and he read the script from the early stages, and he’s very happy with it. He’s excited for it, he’s there the whole way.” Thomas went on to say that working with Stephen King was not something he imagined. “It was not anything I expected when chartering the course of other projects after The Vigil. It’s both humbling, and really exciting.”
That’s all we know about the Firestarter reboot for now. Be sure to follow ScaryNerd to stay up to date on this story and more of all things horror. You can find the full interview on Zavvi here.
