‘Total Recall’ at 30: The Making of Arnie’s Martian Odyssey…

Total Recall is 3 decades old! Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rollercoaster ride to Mars holds up pretty well today and is seen as one of his action classics. Back in 1990 however the movie was a gamble, both for Arnie and director Paul Verhoeven.

How did it come together? Did the shoot go well? What did people make of Total Recall at the time? And will there ever be a Recall 2? Let’s refresh our memories by taking a trip back to 2084…

Mission to Mars

The source material for Total Recall was a Philip K. Dick story from 1966, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. Though it wasn’t exactly Dick’s vision onscreen – for starters the title would take up a whole poster! – it made a fine foundation for the end product. Like previous Dick adaptation Blade Runner (1982), the ideas were what made it special.

Alien writers Ronald Shusett and Dan O’ Bannon had their eyes on the Martian prize, though it took a decade or so before shooting started. The production saw directors and stars come and go. Master of movie weirdness David Cronenberg spent a year working on the script with Shusett and O’Bannon. That’s why Total Recall has an array of mutants in the mix, even though Cronenberg eventually left the project.

Concept art from Cronenberg’s version was released a few years ago. Speaking to the LA Review of Books in 2012, he gave his account of the situation:

“This was heavy duty. And ultimately what happened was, after doing a year’s worth of work, writing ten to twelve drafts myself, I finally handed the last draft to Ron Shusett and I said, ‘here, I think we have it, this is it.’ And he said, ‘well, you know what you’ve done?’ And I said, ‘what?’ And he said, ‘you’ve done the Philip K. Dick version.’ And I said, ‘well isn’t that what we wanted?’ And he said, ‘no, we wanted Raiders of the Lost Ark Go to Mars.’ And I said, ‘well it’s too bad we didn’t talk about that earlier because we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble!’”

Meanwhile on the casting side, Cronenberg’s pick of William Hurt as Douglas Quaid never panned out. Richard Dreyfuss was also reportedly attached for a while… if he can take on a giant shark then a Mars conspiracy should have been a breeze!

Schwarzenegger coming aboard changed everything. He asked Paul Verhoeven to direct, based on his work on Robocop (1987), and helped turn a screenplay with over 40 drafts into a viable vehicle for his muscle-bound antics. Sharon Stone (Lori), Rachel Ticotin (Melina) and Michael Ironside (Richter) joined the cast and the rest was history…

Capturing Quaid

Before history could be made, the movie needed to be shot! Verhoeven worked with a then-enormous budget of around $60 million. The production was based in Mexico City, where the chaotic canvas of 2084 would be created.

Schwarzenegger had more than his reputation to worry about. A scene where he smashes a window with a gun went wrong, damaging his wrist. Total Recall’s FX team needed to blast the glass themselves, in perfect time with Arnie delivering the blow. When that part failed, the Austrian Oak’s wrist got lacerated and needed stitches. He told Yahoo Movies:

“After I was stitched up and everything, we hid the bandages, we pulled the jacket all the way to the front and taped it up so we don’t see the bandages and then the idea was to dive through the window. So that’s what I did, I just hit it and then jumped in.”

The other thing about Total Recall is it wasn’t made by a big studio. Carolco Pictures financed Verhoeven’s epic vision. Hollywood heavyweight TriStar Pictures distributed it, though even then their marketing strategy was reportedly ditched for not being in yer face enough. For many, Total Recall was an unknown quantity. Thankfully it paid out in spades…

Verhoeven’s Victory

When Total Recall was finally released, it went on to make over a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office. Jerry Goldsmith’s majestic score, combined with Wayne Fitzgerald’s elegant title sequence, instantly transported audiences to that dreamy and dangerous future.

Legendary critic Roger Ebert wrote that Arnie’s career-defining performance was one of the film’s strengths. While Schwarzenegger is hardly Robert De Niro, “in his vulnerability, he opens the way for ‘Total Recall’ to be more than simply an action, violence and special effects extravaganza.” Speaking of effects, Rob Bottin and his team won a Special Achievement Academy Award for their extraterrestrial efforts.

Writing in The New York Times, Janet Maslin commented: “Among the film’s less than admirable aspects is its conception of the two principal women in the story. Sharon Stone as Quaid’s earthly wife and Rachel Ticotin as his Martian sweetheart play hybrid hooker-commandos who eventually engage in a savage slug-out.”

Critical response was mixed, though 30 years later Total Recall is recalled fondly enough. It pushed Dutch filmmaker Verhoeven further into Tinseltown, where he made the likes of Basic Instinct (1992, reuniting him with Sharon Stone), multi-million dollar cringe-fest Showgirls (1995) and bug-splat satire Starship Troopers (1997). Quoted by The Ringer, Verhoeven praises Schwarzenegger for bringing him into the Martian mayhem:

“Throughout the shooting of the movie, he was supporting me. He would just be behind me, all the time. Whatever difficulties there were, whatever we needed, Arnold jumped in… Working with Arnold is basically paradise.”

Arnie returns the compliment. “You can watch that movie today; you don’t need any of the new technology or anything like that… I’m very happy to have made a few movies that really hold up. Not because of my doing, but because of brilliant directors.”

Consider this a remake

Was there ever a sequel to Total Recall? Yes and no. A Schwarzenegger-fuelled follow up was certainly developed, based on another Philip K. Dick story. After that fell through, it was reworked into Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg actioner Minority Report (2002).

That movie featured in its cast one Colin Farrell. He would take over from Arnie as Quaid in Len Wiseman’s 2012 remake, which didn’t get anywhere near the same amount of love. Verhoeven disapproved of the film, saying its hard-edged realism was a drawback.

Total Recall was sequelized as a comic book by Dynamite Entertainment in 2011. Though a little known part of the Recall legacy lies in Total Recall 2070, a Canadian/German co-production. This 1999 TV series ran for 22 episodes and is only loosely connected to the movie.

Verhoeven, Schwarzenegger and co achieved something that was kind of impossible – a satisfying action blockbuster and high concept sci-fi rolled into one. It may have strayed a fair distance from Philip K. Dick, but Total Recall was the first flick to put his ideas on the big screen in a powerful, accessible, and above all profitable way.