There comes a time in every former teen heartthrob’s career when suddenly he’s the dad. Zac Efron’s time has come and his child has a fiery set of skills… literally. It’s been a minute since we last encountered the actor Zac Efron. Over the last few years, he’s been busy learning lots of fun facts on his delightful Netflix show and getting a bacterial infection for Quibi. Now, he’s back in a new adaptation of Stephen King‘s 1980 novel Firestarter. The film lands in theaters and on Peacock later this spring.
In the film he plays Andy, whose daughter has pyrokinetic powers, forcing the family on the run. Based on the Firestarter trailer, it seems the people they’re running from are catching up and things are set to get pretty deadly.
Here’s the full synopsis from Universal:
For more than a decade, parents Andy and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) 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) is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans.
Rounding out the cast are That ’70s Show‘s Kurtwood Smith, John Beasley, and Gloria Reuben.
In addition to its source material, the film boasts some pretty big horror names behind the scenes. Jason Blum and Akiva Goldsman serve as producers. Plus John Carpenter is scoring the film, alongside Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. Carpenter’s involvement is especially notable given that he was initially set to direct the 1984 adaptation, which featured Drew Barrymore as Charlie.
Keith Thomas directed the film, with a script from Halloween Kills scribe Scott Teems. Ryan Turek, Gregory Lessans, Scott Teems, Martha De Laurentiis, J.D. Lifshitz, and Raphael Margules are executive producing.
The film debuts in theaters and on Peacock on May 13.