You want the good news or the bad news first? The good news is that
Len Wiseman ('Live Free or Die Hard', 'Underworld') probably won't now return to direct
'Die Hard 5', that's gearing up for a Spring shoot with Bruce Willis returning as the ever increasingly out of shape John McClane. The bad news is that
Wiseman's July-attachment to a Kurt Wimmer scripted contemporary remake of
'Total Recall' (absurdly being produced at a shingle known as 'Original Films') was totally serious, and it will
probably now shoot in March, possibly with
Colin Farrell leading. The much more relaxed and interesting 'these-days' Irish actor tops a wishlist that inevitably includes, you know who I'm going to say before I say it....
Michael Fassbender and
Tom Hardy. No offers have yet been made, so it might just be a 'wishlist memo'. Regardless, you can strike Hardy off that list straight away as he'll be gearing up to shoot his role as
The Riddler in 'Batman 3' then. Fassbender likewise is being courted
for an unknown role in 'The Hobbit' that will probably keep him busy for most of early next year.
Even Farrell looks to have his first half of 2011 already full and would seem unreachable for this. He next stars alongside
Eric Bana in Sheldon Turner's crime drama
'By Virtue Hall' that films in January, before moving onto David Cronenberg's adaptation of
'Cosmopolis' that according to it's producer will shoot April 4th, co-starring
Marion Cotillard. Besides, even if he was available, Farrell has become something of an autuer-driven, non-mainstream actor since he cleaned up his image and whether he would sacrifce the plaudits he's getting for his fantastic run of art movies ('Ondine', 'In Bruges' and the forthcoming 'The Way Back') to return to the paycheck heyday of the likes of 'Alexander', 'Swat' and 'Daredevil' is unlikely. I have a considerable fondness for the entertaining Paul Verhoeven directed 90's original, based on
Phillip K. Dick's story 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale' that follows
a man haunted by a recurring dream of journeying to Mars who buys a literal dream vacation from a company called Rekall Inc., which sells implanted memories. The man comes to believe he is a secret agent and ends up on a Martian colony, where he fights to overthrow a despotic ruler controlling the production of air.
Verhoevens movie isnt perfect by any means, but the tale he told with
Arnold Schwarznegger and
Sharon Stone was completely his. It was his vision for what a Phillip K. Dick adaptation should look like, a true author telling a story with the camera. Can we really expect Wiseman to do the same here, even if by some miracle he convinces Colin Farrell to star?