He’s been rumoured for a while now, but given his busy schedule, Colin Farrell was by no means a lock for the lead in Sony’s Total Recal****l remake. But now, according to producer Neal Moritz, the actor is on board and shooting is set to kick off in May.
Chatting with Collider, Moritz revealed a few intriguing titbits about the new film, which is being brought to the screen by Underworld/Die Hard 4.0’s Len Wiseman. First up? It’ll be a different world to the one created by Paul Verhoeven for the 1990 original, which saw Arnold Schwarzenegger as a construction worker convinced he's also a secret agent after visiting a memory-implantation facility. This time, the plan is to hew even closer to Philip K Dick’s story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.
"It’s closer to the book, the big difference is we don’t go to space,” explains Moritz, adding, “Instead of it being a spaceship that takes us to another planet, there’s something that takes us from one side of the planet to another that’s really interesting.” So Colin won’t be getting his ass to Mars? We’re frankly a bit disappointed: “Get your ass to Taipei” just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
And if you’re still frothing with barely-contained anger at the idea that Wiseman is the director they’ve chosen to follow in Verhoeven's footsteps, or even that someone would want to attempt a new take on Total Recall at all, Moritz aims to diffuse some of that fury by promising a nifty, futuristic spectacle.
“I think the world that Len Wiseman is creating is incredible. It’s a real world, a real future world, where the cities have just gotten so overcrowded that the cities are just built up, up, up, up. We’re playing it like a real world, but there are all these technological advancements, and it’s just really, it’s cool. It’s an awesome movie. I’m dying — as a fan of movies, more than anything, it’s a movie that I’m just dying to see.”
Finally, the film will not be giving in to one big trend – there are currently no plans for it to be made in 3D, despite all the studios pushing the format with gusto. “We’re not gonna do Recall in 3D,” says Moritz. “We decided that it would be too much.”
But what do you think? Should Recall be remade at all? Can you see Farrell as the new Arnie? Or should we give the new version a chance?