A pair of new clips tease the father-daughter drama and blazing destruction that will light up the screen in the upcoming Firestarter remake. Released courtesy of IGN, the clips put the spotlight on the relationship between Zac Efron as Andrew "Andy" McGee and his daughter Charlene "Charlie" McGee, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong, who develops pyrokinesis and is hunted by a shady government agency.

The clips see Zac Efron do his best to protect his daughter, with the pair escaping her potential captors by using her powers. Based on the novel by Stephen King, Firestarter is scheduled to be released at the end of this week.

For more than a decade, parents Andy (Zac Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera 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.

Directed by Keith Thomas from a screenplay by Scott Teems, Firestarter stars Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Sydney Lemmon, Kurtwood Smith, John Beasley, Michael Greyeyes, and Gloria Reuben. The horror remake is also being produced by Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, which should give Stephen King fans assurance that the movie will do the source material justice. As should...

The Firestarter Remake Has Been Given the Seal of Approval by Author Stephen King

firestarter-efron
Universal Pictures 

Not only is celebrated horror producer Jason Blum on board, but he has also since revealed that Firestarter author Stephen King has even given his stamp of approval to the imminent remake. The original Firestarter, which was released in the 1980s, was sadly not met with a very warm critical reception, with Stephen King himself describing the effort as "one of the worst of the bunch" of the adaptations of his work he had seen. Thankfully, it sounds like the remake will vastly improve things.

"Firestarter, you know, (laughs) it's a better book than a movie all those years ago, but it was just such, such a great idea, and it's something I've always wanted to do,” Blum said of the project, which will act as both an adaptation of the novel of the same name and a remake of the 1984 movie. “And I wouldn't want to do it unless, same thing [as The Purge and James DeMonaco], unless - by the way, we couldn't do it unless - Stephen King was okay with it. But he gave us our blessing, and that gave me the confidence to think, 'Well, let's give this a shot.' So I hope he likes it. He liked the script, so hopefully he'll like the movie."

Firestarter is scheduled to be released in the United States on May 13, 2022, by Universal Pictures simultaneously in theaters and on Peacock.