Bryan Cranston; the actor who first gained major notoriety for his comedic turn as Hal in Malcolm in the Middle, before going on to wow audiences across the globe with his Emmy Award winning portrayal of Walter White, in the AMC series Breaking Bad; is currently negotiating to play the villain in Columbia’s upcoming remake of the classic sci-fi movie Total Recall.
Originally released in 1990 and based on the Philip K. Dick tale “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”, Total Recall starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid; a man who purchased a memory implant of a vacation to Mars, but quickly came to believe that he was a secret agent and journeyed to Mars to overthrow it’s tyrannical ruler; in a movie where the entire plot was intended to be purposefully vague, and never explains if the events of the film are real, or taking place solely inside Quaid’s mind.
Changing the plot somewhat, the remake (which places The Way Back’s Colin Farrell in the role of Quaid/Hauser) focusses not on a Martian colony, but rather rival nation states; with Quaid/Hauser beginning the film as a factory worker in the fictional state of New Shanghai, and coming to believe that he is a spy, but being unsure whether or not he was working for New Shanghai, or the rival state Euromerica.
Cranston is currently negotiating to star as the leader of Euromerica (a man named Vilos Cohaagen); who is secretly readying for an invasion of New Shanghai, in a sort of pre-emptive strike designed to protect his people from what he sees as a very viable, and imminently threatening, opposing state; and will soon be back in our consciousness in a big way, as he’s not only starring in a number movies (including the recently released The Lincoln Lawyer), but will soon be back on U.S. screens as Walter White, when Breaking Bad’s fourth season premiers this July.
After director Len Wiseman (Die Hard 4.0) finally hires his leading ladies, he will begin filming the new Recall in Canada this coming May, with an eye to release the movie (which unlike most blockbuster nowadays, will be released in only 2D) on August 3rd in the U.S., and on August 22nd in the U.K.
Matt Wheeldon.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter.
