Reports that a remake of Total Recall was in production began to circulate earlier this year and these have now been confirmed by the appointment of a screenwriter.
Kurt Wimmer, the scribe behind The Sphere and Ultraviolet, has been hired by Neal Moritz’ Original Films (the irony of which isn’t wasted on us) and Columbia Pictures to produce a screenplay for the project. The screenwriter has experienced a good deal of success over the past decade but given his track record in the genre, Wimmer, who also fashioned the script for Equilibrium, might not have been at the top of everyone’s list for the responsibility.
The rumours are that the new film, which currently has no release date, will be less a remake and more a second attempt to adapt Philip K Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, upon which Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 Schwarzenegger vehicle was based. This should leave fans of the source material more optimistic that the original story might finally be done justice as, though entertaining in its own right, for many Verhoeven’s version descended too quickly into a generic Hollywood action-fest, skimming on the more challenging messages of Dick’s novelette.
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale was written in 1966 and tells the story of an ordinary man who pays to have memories of a life as a secret agent on Mars implanted. The procedure doesn’t go as planned, however, as the new implants unlock seemingly real memories of life as a secret agent, leading to a dangerous chase to get to the truth.
