2022’s Firestarter looks set to introduce a new generation to one of Stephen King’s best-loved horror stories, but the popularity of Netflix hit Stranger Things (and superhero movies more broadly) may hinder the remake’s impact. When Firestarter was released in 1980, the novel was the latest in a string of critical and commercial hits for horror legend Stephen King. The book was soon turned into a movie that fared fine at the box office, although 1984’s Firestarter was not as critically adored as director Tobe Hooper’s iconic Salem’s Lot adaptation.
However, despite its muted critical reception, in the decades since the movie’s release, Firestarter has become one of King’s most unexpectedly influential books. The tale of a small child who learns she can manipulate fire through her feelings, Firestarter was one of the earliest popular novels to subvert the familiar tropes of the conventional superhero story. However, the very elements that made Firestarter such a revolutionary story at the time of its original release may cause its upcoming remake to feel outdated.
2022’s Firestarter remake arrives in cinemas and will be on streaming in May 2022. Starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie, the story’s heroine, and Zac Efron as her beleaguered father Andy, Firestarter hopes to follow It’s two-part blockbuster adaptation and become another successful high-profile remake from King’s back catalog. However, while the original novel was a big hit and its adaptation fared fairly well, their story of a super-powered young heroine discovering her abilities while on the run from shady government operatives may now be too familiar for genre fans. The original novel and movie have been so influential that Firestarter’s remake could ironically end up looking old hat in comparison to the likes of the X-Men franchise’s movies and Stranger Things—both of which owe a creative debt to the Stephen King story.
Firestarter Story Explained
The novel, original movie, and remake of Firestarter all have the same core story in common. Where some Stephen King adaptations change and update details of their source stories, judging by its trailer, 2022’s Firestarter remake will follow the same formula as its predecessors. The plot follows Charlie as she discovers that she can control and manipulate fire thanks to some shady MKUltra-style experiments enacted on her parents Andy and Vicky. As government agents attempt to track Charlie and her family down due to her inability to control her nascent powers, she is inevitably separated from Andy and Vicky (both of whom also boast supernatural abilities thanks to their time as government guinea pigs). Eventually, both Charlie and her parents must utilize their secret abilities to fight for their lives.
How Stranger Things Borrowed From Firestarter
Early 2022 will also see the release of Stranger Things season 4, and fans of the Netflix hit will no doubt have noticed the similarities between the above synopsis and the successful sci-fi series. Both Stranger Things and Firestarter tell the story of a young girl gaining superpowers via government experiments and then attempting to lead a normal life as her former captors try to track her down, with Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers acknowledging the influence of King’s novel and its adaptation. Admittedly, Stranger Things did add some new strands to the story, such as the fact that Eleven only has one parent, her mother doesn’t have any powers that viewers know of (yet), and she faces off against supernatural monsters such as the Demogorgon.
While these differences are more than enough to ensure that Stranger Things could never be accused of outright plagiarizing the King hit, they may not enough to make Firestarter’s remake feel fresh or innovative to new viewers. If anything, Firstarter’s lack of a supernatural enemy for Charlie could make the remake feel like a less inventive Stranger Things cash-in, something that will not be helped by the boom in popularity that the superhero sub-genre has enjoyed in recent decades. Since Firestarter first hit shelves, superhero stories have taken over multiplexes, TV screens, and every other inch of the media landscape. Their tropes have been subverted, flipped on their head, played into, inverted, revised, and thrown out as movies, shows, comics, and novels all strive to find new spins on the same general premise. As such, Firestarter’s story could be in danger of reminding viewers of more than just Stranger Things season 4.
How Superhero Culture Could Change Firestarter’s Reception
Although there were plenty of superhero stories in comic books before Firestarter, the movie adaptation arrived in cinemas before Tim Burton’s first Batman movie, let alone Sam Raimi’s first Spider-man. The original novel and its movie predate the MCU/DCEU superhero boom by decades and, now that there have been 13 movies in the X-Men franchise alone, audiences may not be wowed by the tale of government-pursued mutants learning to utilize their strange powers to protect themselves. While Firestarter’s compelling family dynamics ensure that the remake has a lot more to offer than an X-Men knock-off, the comparisons between the franchises will be harder to ignore when the X-Men movies (in particular New Mutants and Logan) borrowed a lot from the King story’s setup. The failure of New Mutants means that few viewers will immediately be reminded of the 2020 flop when Firestarter arrives in theatres.
However, the story of young super-powered protagonists escaping the government’s attempts to contain their abilities and experiment on them is echoed in the X-Men spinoff, while 2017’s hit Logan offers an even closer parallel. Logan’s Wolverine protects his young daughter from those who want to use her powers for their own gain, essentially telling the same story as Firestarter but focusing on the father’s perspective as opposed to that of his young child. The critically acclaimed superhero story was a huge hit upon release thanks to Logan’s unexpectedly elegiac, somber tone, something that Firestarter is unlikely to share with the younger Efron as its father figure. Still, the similarities between director James Mangold’s earlier hit and the upcoming remake may cost Firestarter at the box office. The release of Stranger Things season 4, paired with superhero fatigue, could be sufficient to leave viewers bored by the remake before it is even released. Whether Firestarter can fan the flames of Stranger Things hysteria and succeed as a Stephen King adaptation will be clear when the movie arrives in May 2022.