Although 2022’s Firestarter remake looks promising, the Stephen King adaptation missed a golden opportunity when it came to casting the re-imagining. 2022 is set to be another impressive year for Stephen King. After the success of 2017’s two-part remake of 1990’s It miniseries, the iconic horror author’s back catalog is once again getting raided as remakes of 1984’s short story adaptation Children of the Corn, the small-town vampire horror Salem’s Lot, and Firestarter is all set for release in the coming months.
Already, the latter has quite a sizable buzz online, with Firestarter’s first trailer amassing over six million views in the two weeks since the promo was posted. The tale of a child blessed (or cursed) with the ability to manipulate fire thanks to shady government experiments her parents were subjected to, Firestarter is a remake of the original 1984 film. However, despite the movie gaining some positive coverage pre-release, 2022’s Firestarter missed an obvious opportunity when casting the Stephen King remake.
The young heroine of Firestarter, Charlie, was played by future star Drew Barrymore in the original movie. Thus, casting Barrymore as Charlie’s mom would have been a clever way to reference the original Firestarter and would have given Barrymore a chance to revisit one of her formative roles. Like fellow 2022 King remake Salem’s Lot, Firestarter was popular with audiences upon release and the new remake may have a hard time matching the original movie’s impact. Keeping Barrymore involved could have given the two projects some continuity to connect them and the fact that the actor is a bit older than Sydney Lemmon and Zac Efron would have given the filmmakers the chance to age up Charlie.
Making Charlie a teen, rather than a small child, could have given Firestarter a fresh perspective on the original movie’s story and changed things up just enough to make the setup feel different. Not only that, but an older Charlie would avoid 2022’s Firestarter recreating the original movie verbatim while also avoiding comparisons to Stranger Things and Logan, both of which borrowed inspiration from King’s story and now could cause its remake to seem ironically passe. Furthermore, Barrymore has the right pedigree for the role, having balanced horror, action, sci-fi, comedy, and drama in her recent screen career.
To be fair to the creators of the Firestarter remake, Efron and Lemmon are solid choices for Charlie’s parents since the movie opted not to age up its main character. Both actors have impressive screen CVs and should be able to nail the project’s tone (particularly Efron, who has bounced between over-the-top blockbuster roles and more subtle dramatic work with ease in recent years). However, like many Stephen King movie adaptations, 2022’s Firestarter remake has nonetheless missed a trick by failing to age up its heroine and reunite Drew Barrymore with one of her earliest roles in the process.