Total Recall (1990)
The idea for Total Recall began after screenwriter Ronald Shusett’s feature screenplay effort, 1974’s W, went awry. Looking to start anew, Shusett found Philip K. Dick’s short story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” within the April 1966 issue of “The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction”. The futuristic story involves a man named Douglas Quail who has a vacation to Mars implanted in his brain. Surgeons implanting the memory discover that he has a previous memory of being there as a secret agent.
Shusett began writing a screenplay adaptation but could only get so far because the short story wouldn’t sustain a feature film. During this time, Shusett enjoyed the sci-fi comedy Dark Star, John Carpenter’s first directorial effort co-written by Dan O’Bannon. After optioning the Dick story for $1000, Shusett called O’Bannon to propose collaborating on the Dick story. In their meeting, O’Bannon said he’d help Shusett in exchange for help with a screenplay he was stuck on called Star Beast. They completed Star Beast in 1976, which became the 1979 hit, Alien, and then tackled the Dick adaptation, with help from screenwriter Jon Povill (who contributed a character named Melina, the Martian resistance, and psychic/spiritual elements), titling it Total Recall.
In demand after Alien, they knew Total Recall would sell easily even missing a third act. Shusett and O’Bannon envisioned a futuristic film noir detective story with Hitchcockian twists, infused with James Bond-type action, adventure, and romance elements. Dick’s story provided the Mars setup so it would make sense to continue the story there, but there was nothing about how to get there or what it was like.
In their first completed script in 1980, Quail was a Walter Mitty-type, a menial government clerk with a modest life, but with occasional dreams of an exciting life on Mars. After a rip-roaring adventure, the big reveal is that he’s not human. He’s a synthetic replica made by ancient alien technology who has replaced a real-life secret agent killed on Mars. As a synthetic, he couldn’t die, so the government of Earth erased his memory instead and had him live out his life as a common person. In the end, he achieves ‘Total Recall’ when he finds this out and decides to ‘play God’ with his realization that he is an invincible alien machine.
Shusett felt this would work but O’Bannon had major doubts, wanting something better. The writers continued collaborating, taking another job to revise a script for Dead and Buried. Feeling like they’d never agree on a third act, and still reeling from his prior experience of Alejandro Jodorowski’s failed attempt to adapt Dune, O’Bannon abandoned Total Recall.
In 1981, Shusett secured a development deal with Walt Disney Studios. Disney wanted O’Bannon’s Dark Star collaborator, John Carpenter, as the director. Disney agreed to fund a hefty $22 million if Shusett and other assigned writers could come up with a better ending. Unfortunately, Disney found all their ideas acceptable, putting it in turnaround.
In 1982, Shusett bought the rights and sold them to Dino De Laurentiis. Shusett’s contract included protections for his story and ongoing participation in its development. De Laurentiis told Shusett that the picture would go right to production if he got rid of the Mars finale, which he said was a dead end. Dino said it could be set it anywhere on Earth, preferably an explosive war film like Rambo. Shusett said it had to be Mars, and it was not negotiable.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was filming Commando in 1985, when he looked at other projects to complete his five-picture obligation with Dino. When he read Total Recall, he told Dino he wanted to make that next. Dino said no, that he was perfect for Conan but not some passive pushover. He wanted Jeff Bridges. Dino insisted Arnold do Triple Identity, later renamed to Raw Deal. Unfortunately, Bridges passed, his other top choices like Christopher Reeve and Matthew Broderick.
Schwarzenegger kept tabs on Total Recall, offering Dino advice. He recommended hiring a director with an eye for futuristic sci-fi films. Dino thought it didn’t matter, churning through journeymen like Richard Rush (who was let go after telling Dino the Mars ending should stay), Fred Schepisi (who rewrote the script to be more of a psychological drama than action movie, which Dino disagreed with), and Lewis Teague. Schwarzenegger felt Dino had no knowledge how good a movie this might be in the right hands and determined to get it from him if he could. A couple of years later, while working on Predator, Arnold asked superproducer Joel Silver to try to buy it from Dino to no avail.
Meanwhile, Dino did hire a visionary director in David Cronenberg. Cronenberg was set to direct at Dinocitta, Dino’s studio outside of Rome, but he felt the script had two movie ideas that weren’t meshing. He decided to rewrite the script, removing much of the second half to expand on Dick’s original story. Cronenberg constantly butted heads with Shusett over these changes. Shusett insisted that the tone should be a fun adventure like Raiders of the Lost Ark than a dark and brooding future.
By March of 1985, MGM held up financing because Total Recall still didn’t have a star or an approved script. Cronenberg wanted William Hurt as Quail but Dino landed Richard Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss wanted Quail to be an everyman throughout, not a wimp turned action hero. They revised the script again with that in mind, introducing a plot twist similar to the film Dreyfuss would do in 1988’s Moon Over Parador. Quail is revealed to be a lookalike for the dictator who rules Earth that Cohaagen schemes to replace. After vanquishing Cohaagen, Quail assumes the dictator role with Melina joining him.
Everyone was satisfied with the new script, except for one person: Cronenberg. He wanted another new approach, one he later compared to his downbeat 2002 film Spider, making Quail a schizophrenic who physically mutated with each internal change. Dino despised this and told him to go back with what they agreed to. After thirteen revisions, Cronenberg left the project, realizing that he and Dino weren’t interested in making the same movie. After Dino threatened a lawsuit, Cronenberg appeased him by promising he’d do another movie for him (which never happened). Dreyfuss, tired of waiting, left shortly afterward.
In 1986, Russell Mulcahy agreed to direct while Shusett revised with his King Kong Lives collaborator Steven Pressfield, who devised a new ending involving the terraforming of Mars. When Mulcahy left for Rambo III, Dino offered Total Recall again to Cronenberg with the promise they’d do it his way but Cronenberg had lost all interest in fighting the same battles. Dino then hired Bruce Beresford, who reworked the Shusett/Pressfield script with help from script doctors like Michael Almereyda. The filming location moved to Queensland, Australia, where De Laurentiis built his first studio. The budget went from $15 million to $28 million, potentially the most expensive Australian production to date.
After Mel Gibson passed, Mark Harmon expressed interest, then backed out. Beresford and producer Sue Milliken suggested Sam Neill but Dino said no. Tom Berenger was busy, Mickey Rourke passed, as did Jeff Bridges a second time. Richard Dreyfuss might come back, but he was shooting Moon Over Parador in Brazil. Dino finally consented to screen testing Sam Neill, who performed well, but Dino wouldn’t commit to someone unknown outside of Australia. Willem Defoe and Tom Selleck passed. After he was done in Brazil, Dreyfuss dashed their hopes again by declining.
It wasn’t until Beresford’s suggestion of Patrick Swayze that an actor Dino found acceptable said yes. Beresford promised Total Recall would be a fun but classy, satirical Spielbergian adventure. Sets were built and things were finally coming together. Alas, two weeks away from the shoot beginning in late 1987, the brakes slammed down on Beresford’s version. De Laurentiis was filing for bankruptcy. Although independently financed with Australian money, the loss in confidence in De Laurentiis, who left the company, caused the stock for Australia’s offshoot, De Laurentiis Entertainment Ltd., to plummet, effectively ending all chance of continuing.
In January of 1988, after making Red Heat for Carolco, Schwarzenegger learned that DEG was in dire financial straits. He called Dino to confirm he’d sell Total Recall. As it carried $7 million in turnaround fees, Schwarzenegger asked Carolco co-founder Mario Kassar to make a lowball bid. He got it for $3 million.
Schwarzenegger already knew the director he wanted. A few months earlier, Schwarzenegger was dining at the same Beverly Hills restaurant as Verhoeven and had a mutual friend introduce him. Schwarzenegger told Verhoeven he thought his style of visual filmmaking perfectly matched what he wanted to achieve with his action movies. After dinner, Verhoeven’s wife suggested Paul do his next movie with Schwarzenegger, which he thought an interesting albeit abstract possibility.
Schwarzenegger called Verhoeven the day after Carolco secured the rights and had the most recent script shipped over. Verhoeven wanted a break from effects-heavy films but was curious why Arnold was so excited. When he read the scene involving a doctor from Rekall Inc. entering the story to tell Quail he’s living out a simulation, he was sold. This was a great story independent of effects, a Hitchcockian mystery with psychological suspense (a la North by Northwest), and unique metaphysical implications. Verhoeven waived his opportunity to direct Black Rain for Michael Douglas, signing on to Total Recall for $2-3 million. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger secured $10 million, 15% of the gross, and approval of the director, script, cast, and marketing choices.
Shusett heard about the deal from Ridley Scott, who he’d been courting to direct on the hope he could resurrect it somehow. Shusett was excited about Verhoeven as the director, whose Soldier of Orange was a favorite of his from the early 1980s. Carolco honored Shusett’s pre-existing agreement with Dino but a six-month-long Writers Guild strike prevented his involvement in early key decisions. Verhoeven looked through 45 script revisions with Shusett’s name on them that didn’t resolve the third-act issues, so he brought in Gary Goldman.
Ironically, Goldman had once turned down doing a polish on Total Recall to work with Verhoeven on a never-made Warner Bros. project called Warrior. Schwarzenegger insisted that Shusett remain involved to keep with the original vision. Although uncomfortable with Verhoeven’s stronger language and violence, Shusett felt welcomed throughout the process.
By Verhoeven’s request, Goldman rewrote Quail to fit Schwarzenegger because he was no mousy accountant. He revamped the all-out action in the second half to continue the mind-bending twists on identity Verhoeven liked during the first half. Verhoeven wanted ambiguity to the very end as to whether Quail’s adventure is real or fantasy. Goldman devised the twist that Quail’s true identity, Hauser, is a bad guy who erased his brain to ensure no pre-knowledge before the assassination of the psychic Kuato. The hero must choose between who he really is or continue living his fabricated identity.
Verhoven wanted the ancient alien technology plot removed too, but Shusett insisted that it remain. Schwarzenegger sided with Shusett to restore the alien plot on condition that Goldman be allowed to restructure it. They renamed Quail to Quaid to avoid comparisons to America’s new vice president, Dan Quayle. One other complaint from Shusett and Arnold was that the screenplay lacked an emotional payoff, so Goldman developed the angle where Cohaagen shuts off the air to Venusville.
The final story is set 100 years in the future, a time when Earth has colonies on Mars. Douglas Quaid is a construction worker plagued by recurring dreams of being on Mars. His wife tells Doug it’s just a dream, but he’s insatiably curious. Seeing an advertisement for a company called Rekall Inc., an establishment that implants the memory of vacation into the mind in vivid detail, Doug decides to choose the “secret agent” package set on Mars.
Before the implanted thoughts enter his head, Doug finds himself in a real-life espionage drama involving a Martian underground society of spies, seeking to end the stranglehold of a megalomaniac named Cohaagen, a corrupt politician controlling the air all Mars residents depend upon. Fighting for his life, Doug ventures to Mars to uncover his identity, but not everything’s what it seems, both on Mars and in his mind.
Verhoeven is a rare director that invites his writers to see the dailies and provide feedback. He sticks to their scripts; he’d rather have the writer revise than have actors improvise when something wasn’t working. If Verhoeven has a disagreement with a writer on a scene, he shoots it the writer’s way and then his way and lets the writer choose. If there isn’t time, he goes with the writer’s suggestion. When it was over, the Writers Guild pored over the fifty scripts, crediting Shusett and O’Bannon for the story with Jon Povill and the screenplay with Gary Goldman.
Verhoeven initially scoffed at shooting in Mexico City but once he and most of his RoboCop crew arrived there, he was delightfully surprised at the retro-futuristic Mexican architecture (called “New Brutalism” – lots of concrete, little windows) he felt worked well for his vision. However, Verhoeven didn’t enjoy the smog and bouts of “Montezuma’s Revenge,” which caused severe dehydration and exhaustion. He lost over 25 lbs. by the end of the shoot. The constant illnesses necessitated a full-time doctor and ambulance on the set at all times.
For the look of Mars, production designer William Sandell visited science institutions and universities researching how humans could live on other planets, He obtained NASA designs for potential space colonies on Mars. They recreated what they envisioned they would look like across ten soundstages in Churubusco Studios. The crew worked every day over nine months to complete the film.
Due to pollution and contamination, people near the turbinium mining facilities develop deformities and other genetic mutations affecting their appearance in grotesque ways. Make-up effects were done by Rob Bottin. Bottin was given free rein to make the mutants as weird as he wanted and he went to town, especially on Kuato, who resides in the torso of another man’s body. Kuato took fifteen puppeteers to control. The visual effects team won a Special Achievement Academy Award for their work that balanced practical effects with early examples of CG components.
Carolco grew upset that Verhoeven ran behind schedule but Schwarzenegger defended him, stating that their schedule was unrealistic due to the complexity of the 100+ blue-screen shots. Verhoeven also demanded multiple takes because he wouldn’t settle for “good enough.” Carolco could only grin and bear the director’s perfectionist ways, hoping he was making the best choices with their money. The production went over schedule so they skipped test screenings and put their faith in Verhoeven’s vision.
The end price for Total Recall is anywhere from $48 to $73 million, depending on your source. Schwarzenegger called Peter Guber, co-chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which recently acquired Tri-Star Pictures, that the trailer was no good after discovering audience interest for Total Recall wasn’t tracking well. He had Guber watch the movie with him and he agreed the trailer wasn’t selling it right. Schwarzenegger told Guber they needed an experienced outside company. After narrowing to the best choice, their new marketing blitz turned a film tracking to mediocre sales to one of the must-see movies of the summer, breaking the record for the best opening week for a non-sequel movie to that date. It made $120 million in the US plus a hefty $140 million in international markets, for a total of $260 million in returns. This placed it as the fifth highest-grossing film of 1990.
Critical reception at the time drew mixed reactions, many complaining about the gratuitous violence and grotesque carnage. Total Recall is regarded by many as one of the best sci-fi films of its era. From outward appearances, it would seem like another brain-dead action vehicle for Arnie to blow everything up, and he certainly does that, but that’s just scratching the surface of what makes this a must-see movie for all sci-fi/action junkies. It’s clever, thoughtful, absorbing, and exhilarating; it delivers all the goods you could want and then gives you a little more.
Verhoeven pulls out all stops in this ultra-violent and action-packed rollercoaster that never lets up for a second. It was originally slapped with an X rating until they scaled back four overly graphic scenes of violence. It’s tightly edited, always moving forward, with more than a few nifty twists to keep the plot mercurial enough to be fascinating. The violence is often gratuitous and quite graphic, but as with Robocop, humor tempers its gruesomeness. Perhaps a few things are excessive — the scenes with humans exposed to the air-less environs of Mars are ridiculously overdone — but given the fantastical nature of the presentation, it seems disingenuous to nitpick about a few inconsistencies in physics and logic.
If you aren’t squeamish about heavy violence, Total Recall gets high recommendations for action and sci-fi fans. It’s essential viewing for Schwarzenegger aficionados. You may not be able to take a trip to Mars, but after watching Total Recall, the memory of living out an adventure as a secret agent in a world of danger is well worth the film’s rental price to implant.
- In 1993, Goldman bought the rights to Dick’s “Minority Report” and asked Verhoeven to executive produce. Verhoeven suggested reworking it as a sequel to Total Recall he could direct. Shusett had contractual rights for involvement in a Total Recall sequel and worked on the first draft with Goldman. After Carolco’s in 1995, it went to Fox, where the tie-ins to Total Recall were removed.
- In 1997, Dimension Films paid $3 million for film sequel rights. Shusett and Goldman wrote a new screenplay but Schwarzenegger who said it was too complicated and passed.
- In 1999, “Total Recall 2070” appeared on Showtime with different characters.
- In 2011, Columbia Pictures released a vastly inferior PG-13 reboot.
Qwipster’s rating: A+
MPAA Rated: R for pervasive graphic violence, sexuality, brief nudity, and language
Running Time: 113 min.
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox, Mel Johnson Jr., Marshall Bell, Michael Champion, Roy Brocksmith, Ray Baker, Rosemary Dunsmore
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Screenplay: Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, Gary Goldman