You Mean There Might Be More?

According to this article over at Moviehole.com there's a new 'Total Recall' project in the pipeline, "the word is the new film won’t be so much a sequel than it’ll be…. a remake. It kinda... has to be." I guess because Schwarzenegger is now my governor (his signature is on my Masters Degree!) and doesn't have time to make a movie. I'm glad to see he has his priorities in order. The article goes on to say, "I knew the Weinstein boys had the rights to the original 1990 movie – and paid top-dollar for them!"

According to Laura Leslie top-dollar was $10,000 for everything in a deal PKD made in 1977 in which he sold everything: movie rights, merchandising rights - this was the only time Dick ever sold the novelization rights for a short story or novel. Remember in the case of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dick opted to have his novel reissued under the title Blade Runner. I know because I use this book in one of my classes as it's the cheapest edition but I have to suffer so many students that write: "Philip K Dick wrote in his 1982 novel Blade Runner, ..." It's hard not to mark them down for the mistake.

Bottom line: the rights have been sold so the rights owner can pretty much do whatever he wants and slap PKD's name on it. Maybe these guys could bring Cronenberg back on board. He was set to cast Richard Dreyfuss (is he still alive?) or Dustin Hoffman as Quaid and I think was pretty far along on the preproduction when his mother died. That could've been great! Much more faithful to the spirit of the story.

But I'm not optimistic. Hollywood seldom rises to the occasion anymore. Even the guy at Moviehole ends his story with this rhetorical question:

And who could play Doug Quaid like Arnie, I ask?

Note to Moviehole guy: Rhetorical questions don't work as well when they fill your reader with the uncontrollable urge to cry out a list of other answers:
Philip Seymour Hoffman!
Paul Giamatti!
Bill Murray!

Who would you cast?