Looks like director Len Wiseman has found someone for one of the few remaining essential roles in the Total Recall remake: Bill Nighy is in negotiations to play resistance leader Quatto.
Colin Farrell is starring in the new take on Phillip K Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, which now finds him as Doug Quaid, a factory worker who becomes embroiled in the conflict between the nation states of Euromerica and New Shanghai. See, Quaid starts to have visions of being a secret agent named Hauser, and realises that his life might be a life. He has to go on a mission to discover the truth.
Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel are now locked in place to play Quaid’s wife Lori and a woman who helps him find the resistance, who are trying to stop the evil machinations of Vilos Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston). Ethan Hawke's also aboard, though it's not known what he'll be playing. And he's really only a cameo.
You might recall that in the original, Mars-flavoured version, Marshall Bell played the dual role of George/Kuato, a mutant leader who turned out to be more than he seemed thanks to the magic of a prosthetic character in his stomach. Given the Earthbound setting, we’re not sure there are going to be any mutants in this one, though it’s not like Nighy doesn’t have prosthetics experience, having playing Davy Jones in two of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He’ll also show up as Rufus Scrimgeour in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
Total Recall will get its ass to cinemas on August 22, 2012.