Stephen King's Firestarter: John Carpenter Confirmed to Score New Reboot

Horror fans were given quite a bit of good news today, as the new adaptation of Stephen King's Firestarter earned its first trailer and also earned an official release date. While fans knew that this movie was on the way, we were also given an entirely unexpected yet welcome surprise with the reveal that the film's score would be composed by John Carpenter, along with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. This collaboration marks one of the rare instances of Carpenter crafting music for a project in which he wasn't directly involved with its creation. The new Firestarter hits theaters and Peacock on May 13th.

The film is described, "For more than a decade, parents Andy (Zac Efron; Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile; The Greatest Showman) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon; Fear the Walking Dead, Succession) have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong; American Horror Story: Double Feature, The Tomorrow War) 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; Wild Indian, Rutherford Falls) is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans."

Carpenter himself is often lauded for his filmmaking talents, though many of his films also allowed him the opportunity to showcase his musical skills. This won't be his first time diving into the world of Stephen King, as Carpenter directed an adaptation of Christine, while also having crafted that film's score. In fact, his last foray into the world of directing was directing a music video for the Christine theme song, which he released back in 2017.

Interestingly, given how much praise Carpenter had earned on projects like Halloween and The Fog, he was initially on board to direct Firestarter back in the early '80s, but when his The Thing was a financial disappointment in 1982, the studio wanted to cut the budget on his version of the adaptation, as he ultimately abandoned the project. Carpenter most recently developed the scores for David Gordon Green's trilogy of Halloween films.

Firestarter debuts in theaters and on Peacock on May 13th.

Are you excited for the new film? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!