New Firestarter Movie Bombs at Box Office Worse Than 1984 Original

Firestarter, the latest adaption of Stephen King's sci-fi horror novel of the same name, bombs at the box office even worse than the 1984 original.

New Firestarter Movie Bombs at Box Office Worse Than 1984 Original

Firestarter, the newest adaption of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, has bombed at the box office even worse than the 1984 version did. Firestarter released dually in theaters and on Peacock on May 13, 2022, and has not been well received by audiences. The film follows Andy McGee (Zac Efron) and Vicky Tomlinson-McGee (Sydney Lemmon) as they desperately attempt to protect their daughter, Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), from a government agency that wants to harness her pyrokinesis. Firestarter is directed by Keith Thomas, written by Scott Teams, and is a remake of the 1984 adaption of the same name.

The original Firestarter, which starred Drew Barrymore, David Keith, and Heather Locklear, didn’t receive very positive reviews. King himself slammed the film as being one of the worst adaptions of his work and critics pointed out the oversimplification, lack of emotion, and uncompelling performances. Hence, the latest version of Firestarter really didn’t have that high of a bar to reach and had plenty of room to improve upon the original. Unfortunately, Firestarter didn’t improve upon the original in the eyes of audiences or critics.

As reported by Variety, Firestarter bombed at the box office even worse than the 1984 original. After its opening weekend, it boasted a very meager $3.8 million. The film had a budget of about $12 million, so it still has a ways to go to break even. Meanwhile, the original 1984 made about $17 million overall at the box office. While Firestarter still has more time to improve on its box office performance, it isn’t likely to improve by much. This is because the film is already available for streaming and those who have seen it aren’t likely to be recommending it to others.

This box office flop and its 12% score on Rotten Tomatoes, likely means there will not be a Firestarter 2. Firestarter’s ending seemed to set up the possibility of a sequel. The likelihood of sequels largely comes down to box office performance and whether such a film has the potential to be profitable. Still, with Firestarter being dually released in theaters and on streaming, its performance will be judged a little differently. How it performs on Peacock will also play into how likely a sequel would be. Similarly, its release on streaming very likely played into its box office performance. Since the original movie was released in a traditional manner, it’s hard to compare the two, but it’s still clear that this latest version of Firestarter has an uphill battle.

With only taking $12 million to make and being shot within several months, it isn’t very consequential that Firestarter is performing so poorly. If it had been a bigger budget film, the reviews and box office bomb would be disastrous. At the same time, Firestarter is definitely not reflecting well on its filmmakers. Perhaps, what can be learned from Firestarter is that this particular King work might best be left alone as filmmakers have failed twice to do it justice.