Variety reports that the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter from Blumhouse and Universal has found its director in German filmmaker Fatih Akin. Akin is best known for In the Fade, the 2018 Golden Globe winner for “Best Foreign Language Film”, as well as having won the Cannes’ best screenplay award for The Edge of Heaven. Akin will replace Akiva Goldsman, the Academy Award winning screenwriter behind “A Beautiful Mind”, who was reported to be directing the film last year.
Scott Teems (Narcos, Rectify) has already been tapped to write the screenplay adaption of the 1980 Stephen King novel about a young girl that can create fires with her mind as a result of secret experiments performed on her parents. In the story, the girl is forced to flee from a secretive group that wants to use her abilities, known only as “The Shop.”
The book was already adapted into a film in 1984, starring Heather Locklear, Martin Sheen, Keith David and Drew Barrymore. That film got mixed reviews from film critics, with Roger Ebert declaring “The film’s crucial flaw is the lack of a strong point to the story. A little girl has her dangerous power, some government agents want to examine her, others want to destroy her, and things catch on fire. That’s about it.” We’ll see if Teems and Akin can do better with their adaptation.
Following the massive commercial and critical success of IT, studios are continuing to develop and greenlight Stephen King adaptations. Other King-based films in the works include It: Chapter Two, Doctor Sleep, Pet Sematary, and just days ago, it was reported that the screenwriters behind A Quiet Place would be adapting his story The Boogeyman.
