10 More Huge Movies That Were Instantly Forgotten
5. Total Recall (2012)
It's not without a profound sense of irony that this second adaptation of Philip K Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" swiftly became one of the most-forgotten remakes in cinema history.
Even accepting that there's little point trying to compete with the brilliance of the original Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring sci-fi action classic, 2012's Total Recall re-do is a textbook Big, Glossy Remake that strips all the soul of its inspiration away.
No, Colin Farrell isn't and never can be Arnie, but what truly doomed this remake is its highly sanitised throughline, cleaving away the grime and dark humour of Paul Verhoeven's original in favour of a slick, generic Product with a restrictive PG-13 rating to boot.
Above all else, it simply has no personality of its own, taking the basic beats of the previous film and remixing them via the most trite, lazy aesthetic fancies of 2010s blockbuster filmmaking.
In the very least, it had the decency to quietly vanish from view, ensuring that when you Google "Total Recall," the 1990 original still remains the top result.