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Total Recall Remake
Yes you read that headline correctly. They are producing a Total Recall remake. A move that quite frankly confuses me a little bit.
Look, I’m not nearly as upset by this new as some other people are (and I have no idea why they’re upset). Let’s call a spade a spade… it’s not like the original Total Recall was all that great of a movie anyway. It’s an 80’s Arnold movie. It’s fun. I like it. It’s not The Godfather.
But before I go into why I find this news a bit confusing, the good folks at Cinematical give us the low down:
Kurt Wimmer has been hired to write the script, which may or may not be based on “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” the Philip K. Dick story that inspired the original.
THR notes Wimmer’s recent scripts for the upcoming thrillers Law Abiding Citizen and Salt, but the more pertinent credits are the ones he earned as writer / director of Equilibrium and Ultraviolet, which provided action thrills in science-fictional settings. If you harbor any hopes for this project, you can only dream that Wimmer can come up with something more closely resembling Equilibrium, a trashy yet entirely entertaining little surprise, rather than the flat, anemic, entirely incoherent Ultraviolet.
Why? No really… why? The original was a decent success making just over $100 million, but it’s not like it was a massive blockbuster. Also, anyone who has seen it has Arnold cemented in their heads. It wasn’t that great of a movie to start with (like I said earlier, I liked it, but it is what it is). It’s also not like Total Recall is considered a big cult classic or anything either. So I’m left to ask the question again… WHY? Everyone knows I’m ok with remakes in general… but to me this one makes no sense.
What are you thoughts?
Everyone knows me thoughts of remakes, so I won’t go into my whole “Movies shouldn’t be remade” deal.
But since I think that, I think this is a stupid idea, especially for a film that’s good. And why hire him to write the script? Why not get Jonah Nolan? He won’t mess up, hopefully not like he messed up with the T:S script
How do you know he messed the T:S script? He might of vastly improved on the original script, and what you considered messed up may have been by the previous script writers. Notice his name was not listed in the credits for screenplay? He did not write, he change had his hand in some rewriting.
Maybe the remake will tell us if it was a dream or not and not leave us hanging.
TR is a classic 80’s movie. Show more respect John! I’m totally against a remake, I thought the original was great.
actually it was made in 1990….and as cartman would say “gay”
Actually you’re wrong, it was made in the 80’s. Nice try, sexy.
It might have been “made” in the 80s, but it came out in on the 1st of June 1990.
Sorry AndyS, you are incorrect.
No I’m not, it was made during the 80’s. Thus its entire art direction and look is from the 80’s, not the 90’s. The time a movie comes out is irrelevant, it has to do with when it was made.
Chris, did you get the end of the movie? I wasn’t left hanging. Was everyone else left hanging? Maybe I didn’t get it.
Anyway… What I think is, this was a decent sci-fi action movie. It wasn’t glorious, but it was ok. The premise is quite cool and the idea of the colony in Mars is appealing. Maybe, what they wanna do is take a decent movie, and make it into a great movie… it could be done… I don’t think it WILL be done, but it could.
There were a few hints through out that were suppose to make you wonder if it was all a dream or not. First line was when Arnold was getting ready for his dream, the tech says, “aliens on Mars, that’s a new one.” Later, the doctor tries to convince Arnold that it is a dream and give him a pill. There were a few other, but I forget now.
My only concern is also my curiosity. Loved Equilibrium, but Wimmer left me a little disappointed with Ultra Violet. UV had some cool stuff in it, but over all it just sucked. Granted from what I have read he went over budget and crazy with it resulting in him getting cut from the project, which left the studio to cut and splice what there was into what we saw. True or not, I’m worried a Total Recall remake written by him may end up an Ultra Violet, but at the same time curious to see if he could pull another gem like Equilibrium out of somewhere.
I don’t mind a remake of the movie being made. It had some ideas in that Wimmer could probably get all crazy with. I’d rather see a new adaptation of the book, though.
Our Dutch glory Paul Verhoeven is still a legend , nobody will overtop him with a stupid remake. Also for remakes and sequels as Robocop, Basic Instinct.
the amount of remakes cpomming out of hollywood is absurd.
its like the new hollywood business model.
or coming.
I thought it was already upon us, sometimes better, sometimes for the worse.
well here is the thing…the story for total recall is not new….this was a movie based on the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”
which is a great great story…fact is i know that they wanted to remake this badly do to the things they didnt add in the first one….the thing is that arnold didnt fit the role well to the book…so as much as i loved arnold this remake will have a bunch on people who dont know about the book clammer that “What no big ass buff guy” as the main character. But truely this is great news for fans of the book.
btw the retards thought it would be cute to make the sequal for this film into a totally differant story and made the crappy movie “Minority Report”
i just want to say that having clairvoyants on mars is what would have made the sequal tie in well with the sequal minority report…boy did they screw that up.
oh and whats funny is that phillip k dick had lots of stories like this that they could make into movies….most of them have been made they just changed the themes around etc
matrix and so on
Personally I enjoyed Minority Report. The book was pretty good, but so short it left Spielberg with plenty of room to add to it. The Minority Report scripted to be a Total Recall script was scrapped in 1997 when Jon Cohen took over the project. What Spielberg ended up making was not meant to be a sequel, as the predecessor screen writers had planned.
Nice little article about it in the development section of this page: http://www.answers.com/topic/minority-report-1
thnx jeremy
even though i dont want to see a remake. i dont see why not john…i remember you having rules for remaking a movie, but there are no rules IMO. i guess the reason why is ultimately money
The first half of Total Recall is as well paced and exciting as an action film can be. The second half has some problems but overall the movies a BLAST!
In a footnote-producers originally considered Richard Dreyfuss( they first wanted an everyman type actor) to star but went with Arnold.
Way too early to be remade.
chuck
John, how can you say that this movie is not a classic? Since the first time i saw it, late at night when i was a kid, this has been one of my favorite movies!!
This movie is a classic. Sometimes Jojn is so right on but sometimes really doesn’t get it. Probably bc he’s from Canada.Just kidding but not really.
How does this fit on TMB remake rules?
The original movie isn’t a huge name so it is easy to remake without hurting the original.
When it is released the original will be over 20 years old. Many people under 25 haven’t seen it.
And the “original” movie is loosely based on a great short story that still hasn’t be fully realized on screen, so if this movie follows the short story instead of the Schwarzenegger film it may not even be a “remake” (much like I am Legend).
best Verhoeven movie ever. it’s amazing. I’m not opposed to a remake though as the story is cool and it’s not like the Arnie classic will be erased from my memory.
Most Arnold movies look alike to me, so I suppose I’m okay with a remake. As long as, like was said before, they bring something new/more/different to the story. I saw when I was watching it that it seemed to be geared toward a more intellectual film than Arnold is capable of. Oh well.
All I know is… I HATEDEquilibrium and I loathed (except for the paper phones) Ultraviolet…so I’m somewhat skeptical on this.
As for “the remake” of itself? It was an adaptation of a short story, and thus there is plenty of wiggle room, if you will, for a new picture. There can be the whole Martian Pyramid angle, which was lightly touched upon in the 1990 film; there can be more dark comedy/irony as in the original short story; there could be elements from the Movie Tie In novelization from Piers Anthony as well. Going in some of these angles would “solve” one casting problem. You don’t need an “action star” (but I’d suspect VIN DIESEL…)
Things I’d “keep” in the remake: Johnny Cab (but instead of a Fred Astaire, have Arnold S. …) ; Quato: dream vs “reality” (and the ambiguity thereof), and as much as that wonderful, wonderful Jerry Goldsmith score as much as possible.
But I also have to agree with John.
I loved the 90 film, for many reasons. Much of it had to do with the ambiguity of the plot- that keeps it alive and fresh. A lot had to do with the actors, the Rob Bottin FX…
But I “recall” a sequel that was planned to “Recall”. It was based upon another Philip K Dick short story, Minority Report with mutants as ‘the cogs’. That script later was put aside and redone as Minority Report only with the “Recall” events excised. My point here is why bother with “Total Recall/We Can Remember It For You For Wholesale”? Why not choose another short story by the late author and go with it</em?
My hopes are not high, but we’ll see what becomes of it.
yea sure total recall is some people’s eyes wasn’t the greatest… I don’t believe that… for arnie and the 3 boobed ladie it was pretty dam good. and for sci-fi it was even better. I just hate remakes. They tried this as a TV show as well which was a disaster. The thing that pisses me off mostly about hollywood now is that I keep seeing these shitty remakes, and copy cats, and extreme special effects crappo films. I watch more and more old movies over and over because they were believable. Sci-fi was something special. Even horror was scary. No one has any imagination now and this is just another one on the list of fuck ups. Pisses me off… watch, they’ll try a who framed roger rabbit remake soon enough or make sam raimi do another evil dead… or god help us another director… how sad the movie business has become, cept for pixar. I think my rant is done lol
Not everything announced is going to become a reality.
Not every remake turns out to be a terrible film. There are exceptions. As far as Horror goes, despite one overdone long scene, I wound up liking My Bloody Valentine as a horror film. But then again, anyone could have improved on the original film.
Imagination is out there, lurking about. Consider this: for every remake, reboot, or rerun, there is always room for something new. There is also plenty of room for non-remakes and sequels as well.
oh yea and verhoeven I guarenteed will not be apart of this and all of his projects (even starship troopers) though with flaws, were sick films and extremely political. This one was his “fun” flick but still gorey fun. That gory fun will become bullshit and over done with wayyyy to many special effects that just dont feel “real” or even attempting to impress anymore
Maybe they think that in the era of better special fx they can make a truly classy, “dark”(hollywood buzzword), movie for the next generation of movie goers. This movie will most likely put late teens and early twenties movie goers in the seats like nothing else… ESPECIALLY if they’ve never heard of the old movie.
It makes sense to me. I’m in. I love Equalibrium and have faith that this will be pretty cool, at the minimum.
I can understand why Hollywood keeps remaking older films that have had some success–they’ve been vetted in the marketplace and it’s a lot easier than taking a chance on something new. But there’s absolutely no need to remake Total Recall after only 20 years. It’s a SF semi-classic and one of Arnold’s best outings. (How can it not be, with him emerging from inside a giant fat woman suit?) Not the greatest Phil Dick movie. (That honor goes to Scanner Darkly, IMO; much as I love Blade Runner.) But it has enough Dickian weirdness to satisfy nicely. Unless the remake is raking in the praise, I have no plans to see it.
Hollywood is largely populated with boneheads that couldn’t make a good decision to save their life.
Mystery solved John.
I loved the original and this is just unneccessary. I kinda like the choice of director…”Equilibrium” was awesome, but “Ultraviolet” was just stupid.
“Imagination is out there, lurking about. Consider this: for every remake, reboot, or rerun, there is always room for something new.”
Within 48 hours, I had no idea that those words would come back to haunt me.
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From WENN/IMDB:
Badgley Eyes Blade Runner Remake
5 June 2009 9:10 AM, PDT
Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley is hoping to follow in the Footloose footsteps of his co-star Chace Crawford – he’s eyeing his own Hollywood remake with Harrison Ford’s Blade Runner.
Crawford signed on to star in the remake of Kevin Bacon’s 1984 dance film Footlose earlier this year after High School Musical star Zac Efron pulled out of the cast.
And 22-year-old Badgley is keen to make moves of his own on the big screen, in a re-write of Ford’s 1982 sci-fi film.
He tells the New York Daily News, “I’ll be the first guy to star in the remake of ‘Blade Runner’!”
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Blade Runner, is of course, based on Philp K Dick’s “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep”
It’s the first I heard of it, so maybe it’s just a wish on the actor’s part (who does he want to play, anyway? Deckard? Batty?) Now, could it take place in the “world” of Blade Runner? Sure. But a remake? Weighing it against the TMB rules for a remake..I’m not sold. There’s really not much more to say. The FX cannot be “improved” in my view (it was mostly production design and model work- and meant to be appreciated. CG won’t have the same effect, and won’t linger on a shot for more than three seconds.
I’m sure TMB will do a post on the matter sometime today or during the weekend, or Monday. I will hold my wrath until then.
Still, I find myself between a rock and a hard place.