Did You Know: 'Minority Report' Was Almost a 'Total Recall' Sequel?

 

Remember Minority Report? The 2002 Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise film was a pretty entertaining piece of sci-fi cinema, but did you know it was almost made as a sequel to Total Recall?

 

It's true -- and today we're sharing a post that highlights how Arnold Schwarzenegger almost headed up the Precog Crimes division.

 

Blastr does a great job of going behind the scenes of not only how this weird melding almost came to be, but also pointing out a bit of history that not a lot of people know about Total Recall as well.

 

As it turns out, visionary horror film director David Cronenberg was originally slated to adapt Philip K. Dick's tale of a man on Mars (see concept art from that movie here). However, Cronenberg lost the gig when the studio decided that they weren't completely enamored with his serious take on the short story. This opened the door for Paul Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger to step in and create the Total Recall we all know and love. 

 

Carolco Pictures liked what they got, and wanted a sequel, so they nabbed the rights to Dick's Minority Report with the idea of reworking it to be a direct sequel -- but then Carolco folded and Minority Report wound up in development limbo until Spielberg came along and saved it. The rest is history.

 

Personally, I think things probably worked out for the best -- it's really hard to imagine Minority Report working with Schwarzenegger's Quaid as the leading man. It just feels too different. Total Recall never really needed a sequel in the first place (it's a good self-contained story as its constructed) and the idea of retconning another totally different tale by the same author feels like a really bad idea. Maybe I'm wrong though -- what do you guys think? Would you have wanted to see a Minority Report film designed to be a sequel to Total Recall? Give us your take below.

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