If you thought the Total Recall remake stunk, just imagine being the guy who made the original bersion.
Or you don’t have to imagine because Arnold Schwarzenegger, star of the original Total Recall, recently explained how he felt at a screening of a remake of another one of his movies.
“This was the decade where most of the greatest action movies were made — the ’80s into the ’90s,” Schwarzenegger explained. “And now of course a lot of companies come and remake them. And in most cases, I’m not happy about that. Because they’re perfect movies. Why would you redo Total Recall? I was unhappy about it. That is stupid to do.”
The one exception, Schwarzenegger explained, is the new remake of The Running Man.
“I always said in my interviews there was one movie that I did that came out really well but I felt like we didn’t have the budget to paint the future that this story takes place,” he added. “And that movie was Running Man … it was a great action movie, but I always felt kind of like that could be redone in a better way.”
You can watch Schwarzenegger’s full comments below:
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The Total Recall remake was released in 2012, and starred Colin Farrell in Schwarzenegger’s role: As a man named Douglas Quaid who goes to a company that offers artificial memories and picks a false memory of a vacation where he is a super spy. The process instead reveals Quaid’s real memories that were previously erased of a life as a real secret agent.
The 1990 Total Recall, directed by Paul Verhoeven, is violent and funny and cleverly investigates the nature of identity and reality. The remake, directed by Len Wiseman, is rated PG-13, not funny, and not interesting in any way. I don’t know that the very idea of remaking Total Recall is stupid — but this attempt was very much not successful.
The new version of The Running Man, which Schwarzenegger says he is quite pleased with, was directed by Edgar Wright and stars Glen Powell in Schwarzenegger’s old part as Ben Richards, a desperate man living in a dark future ruled by an authoritarian government where the population is kept in check through the use of a deadly reality game show called The Running Man. Powell’s Ben signs up as the latest Running Man contestant in order to pay for his daughter’s expensive medical treatments. The movie also stars Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, Lee Pace, and Michael Cera.
Edgar Wright’s The Running Man is in theaters now.
