Trivia / Firestarter

• Actor-Inspired Element: Art Carney requires a hearing aid, so he suggested that his character wear one too.
• Disowned Adaptation: Stephen King apparently hated the 1984 film version, which Mark L Lester was baffled by; considering the author was on set and very hands-on with the production. He criticized the wind blowing through Charlie's hair, when he was the one who had suggested it in the first place!
• Never Work with Children or Animals: For some of the night scenes, Drew Barrymore had to film her coverage separately on a sound stage, as she could not work all night long. A dwarf lookalike doubled for her.
• Throw It In!: George C Scott wears an eye patch for the last third of the film, due to suffering damage to his eyes from the contact lenses used earlier. His left eye hadn't healed by the time they got to film those scenes.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Had Drew Barrymore turned down the lead, Jennifer Connelly would have been the second actress offered the role. Coincidentally, Barrymore and Connelly would appear together in He's Just Not That into You 25 years later. Among the other young ladies and teenage actresses that were considered for the role, Heather O'Rourke (the child lead in the original Poltergeist) was actually screen-tested, as was Bridgette Andersen (who was the child lead in the Vindicated by Cable Savannah Smiles (1982)).
  • John Carpenter was originally attached to direct, with drafts of the script from Bill Lancaster and Bill Phillips, writers of the The Thing (1982) and Christine (1983), respectively. After the former flopped at the box office, Universal balked at Carpenter's proposed budget and bumped him off the project. As a nod to this, Carpenter wound up composing the score for the 2022 remake. Notable details from his version included:
    • Richard Dreyfuss was the first choice to play Andy McGee. This would have led to a bit of Hilarious in Hindsight for the novel, where Andy watches Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) on television at one point. Dreyfus would later appear in Stand by Me, an adaptation of another of King's works.
    • The story was told chronologically, ditching King's flashback structure.
    • John Rainbird and Dr. Wanless were composited into a single character, the female Dr. Rahv, who presided over the Lot Six experiment and later posed as a maid to gain Charlie's trust.
  • Bill Lancaster's father Burt was approached to appear in the film, but turned it down due to his ailments after a long and very physical career. He would only appear in one more film, Field of Dreams, before retiring.

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