20 Most Hated Film Remakes & Reboots In Movie History

Back in 2010 when Len Wiseman’s Total Recall remake was greenlit, Paul Verhoeven’s original was still an immensely popular film, even two decades after its release.

It’s still considered one of the best and brightest in Arnold Schwarzenegger's canon. Released in June 1990, it came at what appeared to be the crest of a wave for the big lunk: he’d had at least one, usually two movies out a year since Conan The Destroyer and The Terminator in 1984. Six months after Total Recall came surprise hit Kindergarten Cop, and seven months after that, the huge Terminator sequel that would define his career.

A fiery, breakneck sci-fi action flick with (at least nominally) a Philip K. Dick pedigree and RoboCop’s director, Total Recall was another massive hit at the box office - and this time, with critics too. Every penny of the budget was splashed across the screen, and the twisting plot - with the stunning revelation that Schwarzenegger's Quaid was in fact the bad guy’s right hand man Hauser, underneath a layer of implanted memories - and Martian setting elevated it from the standard action movie fare in cinemas at the time.

Total Recall isn’t just an Arnie movie - it’s a cultural artifact. So naturally, the appropriate thing to do would be to remake the film with wiry Irish unibrow Colin Farrell in Schwarzenegger’s role, excising the Martian bits completely and bringing in the visionary director of the Underworld movies.

To add insult to injury, that magnificent twist (that the man underneath Quaid’s false good-guy memories is actually the villain) is… well, untwisted. In Wiseman’s movie, Farrell’s Quaid discovers that the man he used to be had changed his mind and freely joined the Resistance. In other words, it didn’t matter that Quaid was really Hauser - Hauser was a good bloke too.

$125 million dollars to produce a remake of a beloved classic popcorn flick with all the good bits taken out and all the smart bits turned stupid. It’s like they want you to hate it.