The Planned Sequel to the Original Total Recall Would Have Had Schwarzenegger do Minority Report

Total Recall hit theaters in 1990, based on Philip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it turned into a Box Office hit that is considered by many to be a sci fi classic. After that one proved a success, there were plans for a sequel that would have merged Dick’s short story “Minority Report” with the Total Recall movie universe, and Schwarzenegger would have returned. But sadly, those plans descended into years of development hell and ended up never going forward.

Even though Total Recall proved a smash hit in theaters in the summer of 1990, there were initially no plans to move forward with a sequel because the franchising of blockbuster movies had not quite become standard practice in Hollywood in those days. As Recall scriptwriter Gary Goldman put it, there was at that time a “previously accepted idea that sequels were commercial debasements that serious artists did not indulge in.” (Obviously no longer a concern for the entertainment industry…) But Goldman had optioned the rights to the Philip K. Dick story “Minority Report” and had planned on producing a low- to moderate-budget film based on that. He asked Total Recall director Paul Verhoeven to attach his name as executive producer to give the project some legs, but the filmmaker pointed out that this story would actually make a good sequel to the movie they had just completed. Verhoeven felt that the concept would allow them to continue with Schwarzenegger’s Quaid character without repeating anything from the first movie. Their plan was to have the clairvoyants from the original story be among the Martian mutants, and Quaid would become the head of the company that used them to detect crimes before they happened. However, Goldman and Verhoeven parted ways on the project before it progressed much further (Goldman claiming that Verhoeven lost interest and the latter claiming that the former bailed on him), and nothing came of it.

Still, plans for a Total Recall sequel would continue for years, but they found themselves firmly entrenched in development hell. This included another script by the original film’s screenwriters, Ronald Shusett and Goldman, not based on the “Minority Report” story, and that played the same sort of reality-bending mind games as the first movie. The studio liked the script and greenlit the project, and there were rumors that Star Trek: TNG’s Jonathan Frakes would direct. But Arnold Schwarzenegger threw a wrench into those plans when he backed away from it. According to Goldman, the actor said the script was “too complicated,” and he did not want to proceed with the story they created. Plans for a sequel still continued, and there were talks at one point of moving forward with another actor playing Quaid (Vin Diesel’s name was mentioned at one point), but nothing ever took hold. Eventually, the franchise went the reboot route with the film released in 2012 starring Colin Farrell as Quaid (and Shusett still attached as one of the writers). That one proved to be a disappointment, though, falling short at the Box Office and stalling the franchise once again.  And Minority Report got its own big screen treatment in 2002, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg, making it unlikely that story will ever be merged into the Total Recall universe.

One note of interest on the original film: the main character was named Douglas Quail in Dick’s short story, but his surname was changed to Quaid in the movie to keep it distinct enough from the last name of the vice president at that time, Dan Quayle. The 1990 film is available to stream on MGM+, and the reboot is streaming on YouTube TV.

Source: Tales From Development Hell, 2012 (pgs. 61-86)