Universal Pictures
“Firestarter,” a reboot of the 1984 film that is also based on Stephen King’s novel, is set to be released on Friday, May 13. It will premiere simultaneously in theaters and on the Peacock streaming service.
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If you want to watch at home, you’ll need to sign up for the Peacock “Premium” plan, which costs $4.99 (with ads) or $9.99 (ad-free) per month:
Once signed up for Peacock Premium, you can watch “Firestarter” on the Peacock app, which is available on your Roku, Roku TV, Amazon Fire TV or Fire Stick, Apple TV, Chromecast, Xbox One or Series X/S, PlayStation 4 or 5, Samsung TV, LG TV, any device with Android TV (such as a Sony TV or Nvidia Shield), iPhone, Android phone, iPad or Android tablet.
You can also watch on your computer via the Peacock TV website.
‘Firestarter’ Preview
Starring Zac Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong, “Firestarter” is a ” new take on the classic Stephen King thriller about a girl with extraordinary pyrokinetic powers and her fight to protect herself and her family from sinister forces that seek to capture and control her,” according to the Peacock press release.
It continues:
For more than a decade, parents Andy (Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie (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 has other plans.
The film co-stars Kurtwood Smith, John Beasley, and Gloria Reuben. Legendary horror master John Carpenter composed the score along with his fellow “Halloween” composers Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies.
The King novel of the same name came out in 1980 and in 1984, it received its first adaptation, a feature film starring Drew Barrymore as Charlie, David Keith As Andy and Heather Locklear as Vicky. It co-starred Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, Art Carney, and Louise Fletcher. It was largely a flop, earning just $17 million at the box office and being lambasted by critics.
Hopefully, the 2022 version fares a little better. In an interview with Sandton Times, Efron said he was excited to work with the director, Keith Thomas, who also helped him get into character as a father because Efron himself is not a father yet.
“I was personally excited that this came around for that reason and because I wanted to work with Keith Thomas, our director, who is so brilliant. He did this movie a few years ago called The Vigil that blew my mind, and he was the right person for this job. If there was anyone that was going to make this fantastic and real, it was him,” said Efron, adding, “Keith is a dad, I could go to him and ask him any questions about fatherhood, and he would bring his own experience to the table and talk to me in an intelligent and emotionally connected way about certain fatherly aspects that I don’t know about yet. It was nice to work with him on that as well.”
“Firestarter” drops on Friday, May 13 on the NBC over-the-top streaming service, Peacock.