MovieChat Forums > The Fury (1978) Discussion > The book and movie that Firestarter ripp...

The book and movie that Firestarter ripped off

posted 3 years ago by [deleted]
4 replies | jump to latest

I see that another Firestarter movie is on the way.

I'd rather see an update of this tense Brian de Palma flick that came out in 1978, six years before the movie version of Firestarter came out. The book by John Farris (who also wrote the screenplay) came out in 1976, four years before King's book came out.

The plots are very similar. A shadowy government organization lead by a sleazy John Cassavetes kidnaps a young man who has telekinetic powers in order to weaponize him. His father (Kirk Douglas)... a former member of the organization... sets out to find him and rescue him. He recruits another girl with psychic powers of her own to help.

I'd go so far as to say that this book and movie were also the source of inspiration for Scanners.

[–] OvertonPendulum (4026) 3 years ago

Both movies sucked.

[–] whynotwriteme (7817) 3 years ago

I like to imagine "Carrie" as taking place in the same universe as both this film and "Scanners". I imagine Scanners happening about ten years after the other two.

[–] pjl69 (2647) 3 years ago

There's no reason for update, just enjoy the original De Palma film. The Fury was a more bombastic and adventurous version of Carrie. I like both films. Carrie remake was also unnecessary, they only updated some of the effects and moved the story to modern era of cell phones. Julianne Moore is a tough chick, but she couldn't match the pair of Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek in the original.

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

I did note many similarities with Firestarter.