Zac Efron Stars in Explosive First Trailer for Peacock’s ‘Firestarter’ Remake

Zac Efron is starring in Peacock’s Firestarter remake, and now fans can see the movie’s explosive first trailer. In the film, Efron plays Andy McGee, the father of 11-year-old Charlie McGee, who is played by young actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong. Charlie begins to manifest pyrokinesis powers which makes her a target for military scientists who want to study her abilities. Andy is hellbent on protecting Charlie at all costs but, as he and his wife Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) will find out, it may be the rest of the world who need protection from Charlie.

Firestarter is a reboot of the 1984 film by the same name, which starred Drew Barrymore as Carlie and Keith David as Andy. Both movies are based on Stephen King’s iconic novel — also titled Firestarter — which was released in 1980. The new Firestarter is directed by Keith Thomas (The Vigil) from a script by Scott Teems (Halloween Kills, Narcos: Mexico). Additional cast members include Michael Greyeyes (True Detective, Rutherford Falls) and Gloria Reuben (ER, Lincoln). The Blumhouse-produced, Universal-distributed film is set to simultaneously debut in theaters and on Peacock on May 13. This is similar to how the streaming service premiered Halloween Kills in theaters and on its platform on the same day in October.

In a previous conversation with ComicBook.com’s Patrick Cavanaugh, Thomas spoke about taking on the big King adaptation, and shared his thoughts on how it will handle the source material. “It’s something I’ve thought a lot about. And, certainly, when the project first came to me, I was very lucky in that the script by Scott Teems, who wrote the upcoming , was just very, very good, and very rich,” Thomas said. “The material itself isn’t different, right? I mean, it’s the same book that this film is drawing from, the one the earlier film did.”

Thomas then went on to add, “But what we’re leaning into from the book is different. That’s the angle where you can do something. So, for me, it was really leaning into more emotional aspects. It was leaning into parenthood and what that looks like, and then, how do you raise a child, especially a child with abilities like this. That was the place the script went and I thought that it was something that’s a little different than the original film.”