Sneak Peek: "Total Recall"

Columbia Pictures presidents, Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach report that director Len Wiseman ("Underworld"), will adapt the novelette "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", by author Philip K. Dick.

The new film will be a 'contemporized' take of the original story (previously adapted to the big screen as "Total Recall"), from a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer for producer Neal H. Moritz.

"I've always been fascinated with Philip K. Dick's short story," said Wiseman.

"I'm excited at that prospect of diving even deeper into the type of world it evokes and the questions it asks. I love that the most crucial mystery our character is trying to solve is the one of his own soul."

First published in "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction", April 1966, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" featured a classic meshing of reality, false memory and real memory, with the title an allusion to "I Can Get It for You Wholesale".

In the original story, "...'Douglas Quail', a simple and ordinary man, wishes to visit Mars. Unable to afford it, he visits a company, 'Rekal Incorporated', that offers implanted memories or 'extra-factual memory'. The attempt to implant some racy Mars memories of Quail as a secret agent reveals that Quail actually is an undercover government assassin with a mind full of dangerous secrets. The Rekal staff quickly get Quail out of their office; he heads home and finds certain physical evidence to support his new old memories. The government initially seeks his death but instead Quail manages to make a deal. He returns to Rekal to have his Mars memories once more suppressed, and is offered by way of compensation a set of heroic wish-fulfillment false memories. The Rekal staff begin the memory-implanting procedure — and uncover a different and older set of suppressed memories revealing that the unbelievable memories they are about to insert are already there and are true..."

While Moritz continues developing his reboot of the 1990 Martian movie, Dynamite Entertainment will publish a series of "Total Recall" comic books, based on the Carolco Pictures film, directed by Paul Verhoeven.

Rights to publish "Total Recall" were obtained from StudioCanal S.A. under a licensing agreement negotiated by The Licensing Group Ltd.

"...'Total Recall' the comic book series, is centered on an unsophisticated construction worker, 'Douglas Quaid' and the aftermath of his visit to 'REKALL', a company offering vacations for the mind.

"But the Rekall vacation triggers a 'mind plant' in Quaid's brain, leading him to discover that he is a freedom fighter from Mars who has been relocated to Earth.

"Quaid attempts to restore order and reverse the corrupt influence of commercial powers, despite multiple challenges, not the least of which are his wife's multiple attempts to kill him: attacks from thugs who want him dead; and his own confusion as to who he really is.