Talk about compounding a bad idea with a worse one. Columbia Pictures is currently in negotiations with Len Wiseman (“Underworld,” “Live Free Or Die Hard”) to direct the gestating remake of “Total Recall” that has been kicking around since early last year.
As you might recall, Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, and while not a great movie by any stretch, there were enough bonkers things going on to make it one of our favorite offbeat popcorn flicks. The story, based on Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” follows “a man haunted by a recurring dream of journeying to Mars who buys a literal dream vacation from a company called Rekall Inc., which sells implanted memories. The man comes to believe he is a secret agent and ends up on a Martian colony, where he fights to overthrow a despotic ruler controlling the production of air.”
Kurt Wimmer (“Salt,” “Law Abiding Citizen”) who continues to get geek approval/support despite not having done anything to earn it (sorry, “Equilibrium” is lame) will pen the screenplay. Just to put this project in perspective, Wiseman most recently directed a pilot episode of the CBS reboot of “Hawaii Five-O.” We wish everybody involved with this project good luck.