[Wikipedia on Bill Lancaster]: In 1982, he worked on a first-draft script of an adaptation of Stephen King's novel Firestarter for Carpenter to direct. Months later of the same year, Carpenter hired Bill Phillips to work on a rewrite of Lancaster's draft. When The Thing did not match the studio's financial expectations, Universal replaced Carpenter with Mark L. Lester and both drafts were scrapped in favor of Stanley Mann's draft.