Stephen King is here to remind you that he is the king of 80s horror. Sure, Stranger Things was fun and all, and even the author himself enjoyed the Netflix homage—once tweeting that watching the show was like watching “Steve King’s Greatest Hits.”
“I mean that in a good way,” he added.
But in a post–Stranger Things world, it seems Hollywood has suddenly remembered that the famously prolific author is a certified hitmaker himself—and now we’re in the throes of a full-blown Stephen Kingaissance. There’s the remake of It coming this fall, the adaptation of The Dark Tower coming one month sooner, the upcoming Hulu series Castle Rock, and now, a new remake of Firestarter.
Deadline reports that Blumhouse Productions, the horror house of our times, is preparing a remake of the 1984 film, which starred a then-teeny-tiny Drew Barrymore as a pyrokinetic girl who gets chased down by the government. She’s kind of like Eleven, before Eleven. Oscar winner Akiva Goldsman will direct the remake.
Jason Blum announced the news on Thursday night during the Overlook Film Festival at Timberline Lodge in Oregon. If your King senses are tingling, that’s because the lodge is where Stanley Kubrick shot exterior footage for his adaption of King’s The Shining.
Busy as he may seem at the moment, King has never really taken a break from the pop-culture spotlight. He’s an icon in both the literary and cinematic world at this point, with more successful best-sellers and award-winning adaptations that most authors would ever dream of. Still, 2017 will see an unusually high number of King adaptations either on screens or in the works. The remake of It, King’s classic clown horror story, is currently the buzziest project, recently breaking records for the number of views garnered by its teaser trailer.
The most exciting project for King fans may be The Dark Tower, the long-awaited adaptation starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. There’s also Castle Rock, a new Hulu limited series King is working on with J.J. Abrams. That series isn’t an adaptation of one of King’s novels, however, but rather an immersive story set in Castle Rock, a location in Maine found in many of the author’s novels. First comes the renaissance; then comes the entire Stephen King cinematic universe.
