'Firestarter' Reboot Finds Its Firestarter In Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Who Also Appeared In 'It Chapter 2'

If you were wondering who plays the firestarter in the upcoming Blumhouse Firestarter reboot, wonder no more! Young actor Ryan Kiera Armstrong has landed the role of Charlie, the girl with pyrokinetic powers previously played by Drew Barrymore. This won't be Armstrong's first Stephen King adaptation, either. She also had a brief role in It: Chapter 2, where she had the misfortune of being eaten by Pennywise. She'll have much better luck in Firestarter.

The Firestarter reboot is currently in production, and at last, we know who is playing Charlie McGee, the firestarter herself: Ryan Kiera Armstrong. Armstrong's credits include American Horror Story and the upcoming The Tomorrow War. And as I mentioned above, she also had a small role in It: Chapter 2. Here's here scene from that film (she plays Vicky, not Pennywise, just FYI).

Armstrong joins a cast that includes Zac Efron, who plays Charlie's father, and Michael Greyeyes, who plays the villainous John Rainbird. In the film, "A young girl develops pyrokinetic abilities and is abducted by a secret government agency that wants to harness her powerful gift as a weapon." Firestarter is based on the novel by Stephen King, which has the following synopsis:

Andy McGee and Vicky Tomlinson were once college students looking to make some extra cash, volunteering as test subjects for an experiment orchestrated by the clandestine government organization known as The Shop. But the outcome unlocked exceptional latent psychic talents for the two of them—manifesting in even more terrifying ways when they fell in love and had a child. Their daughter, Charlie, has been gifted with the most extraordinary and uncontrollable power ever seen—pyrokinesis, the ability to create fire with her mind. Now the merciless agents of The Shop are in hot pursuit to apprehend this unexpected genetic anomaly for their own diabolical ends by any means necessary...including violent actions that may well ignite the entire world around them as Charlie retaliates with a fury of her own....

The book, published in 1980, was previously adapted into a 1984 film starring Drew Barrymore, and I'm here to tell you that movie is much worse than you even remember it being. In other words, there's plenty of room here for a reboot/remake. Keith Thomas, who helmed the spooky indie horror movie The Vigil, is directing this new adaptation, with a script by Scott Teems (Halloween Kills, Rectify). Jason Blum and Akiva Goldsman are producing, and Martha De Laurentiis, who was an associate producer on the 1984 adaptation, will executive produce.