The cast for Columbia’s Total Recall remake is coming together, with Colin Farrell in the lead, a bevy of beauties testing for the main female roles, and now THR reports that the studio is in negotiations with Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston to play the main bad guy in new take on the classic Philip K. Dick sci-fi adaptation.
The 1990 Arnie version followed a construction worker who discovers a secret identity hidden within himself after he starts having dreams about a trip to Mars. He soon discovers that a number of people are out to kill him, and that he must travel to the red planet to help an underground movement.
However it seems things will be slightly different in this new take, which involves nation states Euromerica and New Shanghai, with Douglas Quaid (Farrell) a factory worker in the latter who begins to believe he is a spy, although he doesn’t know for which side. Cranston would play Vilos Cohaagen, the leader of Euromerica who, under the cover of protecting his people, is secretly readying an invasion of New Shanghai.
Many complained about how far the 1990 Verhoven flick deviated from Philip K. Dick’s original story, and it’s starting to sound like this new version will be even further away, and have little to do with the Arnie flick either, purely using the title to lure punters in.
Total Recall beings shooting later this year, with Len Wiseman directing from a script by Kurt Wimmer.