The casting of Zac Efron as Andy McGee suggests that the project won’t be mixing things up in terms of gender and race when it comes to the story’s leads, but there are multiple characters in the story who could easily be changed for the benefit of the story – such as Shop director Captain Hollister (played by Martin Sheen in the original) or psychologist Dr. Joseph Wanless (played by Freddie Jones).
A similar effort towards greater diversity was recently well done in the making of the CBS All Access adaptation of The Stand, with characters like Larry Underwood and Ralph Brentner changed for the better, and that would be a great thing to see in the new Firestarter.