Total Recall 2

Studio: Miramax.
Production Company: Dimension Films or maybe Geopp Circle (Frakes' production company.)

Project Phase: Development Hell.

Who's Been Asked To Be In It: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Rachel Ticotin and Ronny Cox received memory implants, but Miramax is unsure if they took, yet.
Who's Making It: Jonathan Frakes (Director).

Premise: We don't remember, but we had a great time. It's just like we were there, too.

Release Date: Unknown.

Comments: Mars is now green. Where to vacation next? And which girlfriend will Quaid bring with him, now that Lori (Sharon Stone) is dead?

Rumors: The Jonathan Frakes as director turned out to be true, but first he's got plans to do a bit more Trekkin'.

Scoop Feedback:

[Page draft implanted by 'Ace'.]

October 14, 1997... Miramax's Dimension Films has purchased the rights from the defunct Carolco Films to film the theatrical sequel. Arnold has expressed intrest in making the sequel and he is expected to jump on-board. Dimension paid $3.15 million for the rights.

October 17, 1997... Look for Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear in a follow-up to the hit sci-fi film Total Recall sometime soon now that rights to the property have changed hands. Miramax Films paid a stunning $3.15 million for theatrical sequel, prequel and remake film rights to Total Recall from defunct Carolco Pictures at a Los Angeles bankruptcy court auction Tuesday. The project will be handled at Miramax's genre division Dimension Films. [Info from 'dtsthai'.]

At a recent buzzard fest centring on the carcass of now defunct studio Carolco, Miramax paid a staggering $3.15 million for the theatrical sequel rights to Total Recall. According big cheese Bob Weinstein, a sequel/prequel is definitely on the cards and Miramax are looking to secure the original cast for the task (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Rachel Ticotin and Ronny Cox). In the past Arnie has expressed interest in a follow-up to the $200 million grossing mega-hit and it seems that with a change of studios the project is definitely on the cards. But don't expect a repeat of the original film's bank-blowing budget (which was the most expensive film in history at the time of production). Weinstein has stated categorically that Miramax will not be getting into the "$60 million picture game". The sequel is expected to be budgeted considerably lower than the original which is rather ponderous really, considering Arnie's "$20 million a film please" contract conditions these days. Another interesting thing is that Paul Verhoeven, the director of the original film will not be returning. Instead, according to Weinstein, one of Miramax's 'stable' of directors will be used [Submitted by 'Steve'.]

Miramax has purchased the sequel rights of the 1990 blockbuster from now-bankrupt Carolco Pictures. Apparently, the movie will include Arnold and possibly most of the original cast members (Michael Ironside, anyone?!!). Paul Verhoeven will not be involved with the project. [Scooped by 'Jeff'.]

October 23, 1997... Rumor has it Jonathan Frakes of Star Trek: TNG will be directing the sequel to Total Recall. This from the source himself at the Farpoint convention, where mentioned that Total Recall 2 as a possible directing project following Star Trek 9. [Convention update by 'Trek Hunter 47'.]

October 28, 1997... The funniest thing happened to scoopmeister Diane after reading this page the other day. When she went to bed hours later, she was bombarded by repressed memories in her dreams. Diane dreamt about a time in the distant past (say, oh, 1993 if we had to assign a date to it) where Carolco Pictures commissioned a script for Total Recall 2 - except that this draft was based on another Phillip A. Dick's short story, Minority Report. "I remember that Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett were named as the writersàI also remember reading Dick's short story and wondering just how they could turn it into a Total Recall sequel. Then the details of the story came back to me: in the future, certain human beings are born with telepathic powers. Society looks down on these poor creatures, but the government sees opportunity. Soon, a new anti-crime organization is created, called the Pre-Crime division. The Pre-crime division uses the telepaths to predict who is going to committ an illegal act before they even do it. Then Pre-Crime officers lock the offender up before he's even had a chance to offend. The plot basically revolves around one particular Pre-Crime detective who is shocked when the telepaths spit out his name as a future murderer. He has to figure out how and why this has happened before he's locked awayà" But as we all do, so Diane too woke up from her sleep in development hell.

What shocks the hell outta CA Director Patrick Sauriol is that he's reminded of another legendary SF work by a different legendary SF writer: Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. "Well, not in its entirety," he quickly backtracks when the ears of CA prick up. "But it's very reminiscent of Bester's book: telepathy is used to monitor a future society, and anyone who has a criminal thought is betrayed before they can commit it. But the lead character is a telepath who tries to circumnavigate the system and create an ideal murder with an alibi. It's a little different from Dick's short story but they both live on the same street." [Scoop/Repressed/ False/Real/Memories provided by Diane (if that's her real name, that is.)]

November 18, 1997... The Jonathan Frakes rumor is confirmed by Yahoo's Internet Life magazine. In their latest issue, Frakes is interviewed and confirms that his production company, Geopp Circle, are the ones currently developing the project. [Implanted again by 'Trek Hunter 47 and anonymously'.]

Never let it be said we don't care about your knowledge of trival information, just in case you wind up on Jeopardy. Here's some follow-up to the rumors about the Dick short story Minority Report, whether or not it'l shaping up to be TR2, and comments about the similarity between the Dick story and Alfred Bester's The Demonlished Man. (But please, no more related information about The Demolished Man. Once the project resurrects again we'll draft a page for it...)

" 'The Minority Report' was developed as a new film; but, if Arnold decided he wanted to do it, Fox was going to consider recasting it as Total Recall 2, but this never got beyond the general discussion phase. [I know this, because I am a screenwriter who was offered the chance to rewrite the project.] But the new Total Recall 2 that is in the works is NOT 'Minority Report', which is owned by Fox..." [Thanks to our Martian 'minority report-ite'.]

"The claim that TR2 was comissioned and based on 'Minority Report' was reported in Starlog magazine in the 1993 time frame. A possible title for the sequel was mentioned: 'RED DUST OF MARS'.

"Apparently, the set-up was this: Quaid still possesses Hauser's memories, so he's aware of other nasty tricks Cohaagen had up his sleeve..." [Mailed from Venusville with love by 'katwell'.]

"Here's another shocker. Apparently Bester's THE DEMOLISHED MAN was, in fact, optioned for a time as a movie by -- are you sitting down? -- Oliver Stone. In fact, I have a paperback edition of the book that has the cover blurb, 'Soon to be a major motion picture!' The book is very fast-moving and '50ish in its SF style and overall outlook, and if done properly would make an absolutely incredible movie. It would also cost $400 million dollars at least, be four hours long, and require a director with the combined skills of Robert Altman, Stanley Kubrick, James Cameron and maybe William Friedkin for good luck. This is because of the book's appallingly large number of telepathic conversations, which would be damned near impossible to film properly without slowing the story down.

"IF, and this is a big IF ... IF they are in fact using that as the basis for Total Recall 2, I can see how they would have made such a connection, because the book concerns itself with a telepathic society where murder is allegedly impossible. One man, a rich industrialist, is hellbent on comitting murder and getting away with it. (Casting note, if you read the book, think Michael Douglas, maybe Ed Harris.) He manages to kill his prey and not even leave any traces (the way he does this is fiendishly neat), but there's a witness -- the victim's daughter, who suffers a kind of mental regression / collapse and reverts to a childlike mental state. The cops have to use telepathy to learn who the killer is. And meanwhile, there's someone running around trying to kill the 'hero' as well. (The main cop character could be Morgan Freeman or maybe Clint Eastwood, someone very dignified and intelligent.)

"If they did use this as their template, they're in for trouble, because coupling it with the previous story would be damned near impossible. It would still make a hell of a movie.

"I guess they would probably just write something fresh from scratch and borrow from 'Minority Report' where needed." Of course, now that we know the new TR2 project isn't based on Minority Report, the developers have nothing to worry about. [A big Bester thank you to 'The Gline'.]

January 20, 1998... The New York Daily News carries the entertainment story abour Frakes committing to direct Total Recall 2 after Star Trek 9 wraps and Schwarzenegger's schedule frees up. [Rekalled by 'DGunn', 'mm1701', 'rpouria' and 'thuem'.]

April 19, 1998... "Jonathan Frakes pretty much confirmed Schwarzenegger's involvement in a recent interview. Frakes said that although the big guy wasn't signed yet, that they wouldn't be moving ahead at all if it weren't for his interest. Frakes also indicated that this will most likely be his next project after Star Trek 9. Oh, and on the odd-rumor side, remember the whole 'Minority Report' thing? The P. Dick story that was originally supposed to be TR2? Well, in a Variety article this week about the demise of Jan De Bont's Ghost Riders... project, they mentioned that De Bont was still developing a film entitled (you guessed it) Minority Report at the studio. Interesting huh?" [Thanks to our sage Diane for the scoop.]

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