Although Total Recall never received a sequel, at one point, the future Steven Spielberg sci-fi film Minority Report was almost a follow-up to this Arnold Schwarzenegger classic. As a film based on the short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick, it’s not surprising that the Total Recall filmmakers looked to other writings from that American sci-fi visionary for sequel inspiration. While this didn’t end up happening, it’s a fascinating Hollywood what-if to imagine how things would have panned out differently if Schwarzenegger reprised his role as Douglas Quaid in this futuristic story of surveillance.

Many of the best Schwarzenegger movies were in the sci-fi genre, as he’s excelled in classics like the Terminator franchise, the Stephen King adaptation The Running Man, and the thought-provoking cloning story The 6th Day. With such an incredible body of work behind him, Total Recall still stands as one of his most impressive projects and has maintained a cult following to this day. While Total Recall did continue with a television series and a remake starring Colin Farrell, a true sequel was never made, although the idea of adapting Minority Report for Schwarzenegger was thoroughly explored.

Total Recall 2 Could Have Used Philip K. Dick’s The Minority Report Story

Screenwriter Gary Goldman Options Dick’s Story

The book Tales From Development Hell: The Greatest Movies Never Made by David Hughes sheds light on how Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Minority Report” very nearly became a Total Recall sequel. The story goes that the Total Recall co-writer Gary Goldman, who was gearing up to make his directorial debut, actually optioned Dick’s story with plans to release it as a low-budget feature. However, once he showed it to the Total Recall director, Paul Verhoeven, he suggested it would work well as a sequel.

While Goldman knew that “The Minority Report” had little to do with the concepts of fractured idenтιтy seen in the original Total Recall, he felt there was something about the tone of the story that made it the perfect candidate for a follow-up film. This was an exciting proposition that would have allowed Goldman to take the franchise in a new direction while remaining thematically consistent with the original. Both Verhoeven and Goldman saw this as a way of doing a sequel “that seemed original, not repeтιтive or derivative.”

Could Minority Report’s Story Have Worked As Total Recall 2?

There’s Plenty of Thematic Connections Between The Two Stories

Minority Report and Total Recall each share a common DNA in the form of their originator, Philip K. Dick, meaning it feels incredibly feasible that the story could have worked well for a potential Total Recall 2. However, this would have required significant changes because, although each story paired action with government conspiracies, thematically they were also tackling quite different subjects. While themes of fate, memory manipulation, and the fickle structure of reality ran through all of Dick’s work, simply copy-and-pasting Schwarzenegger’s Douglas Quaid into the story of Minority Report would have felt jarring.

Instead, a Total Recall sequel that told the story of Minority Report would have to take into account the fact that Quaid lives in a world where implanted memories and altered idenтιтies are central. The addition of the PreCrime predictive unit that Tom Cruise’s Chief John Anderton works for would have had to be introduced as a natural extension of the world of Total Recall, and the writers would have needed to be extremely careful that all these lofty concepts didn’t cave in on one another.

The preventive crime force of Minority Report and the Mars-centric worlds of Total Recall also feel like two distinct futuristic imaginings, so for this to work as a sequel idea, a lot of work would need to be done to bridge the gap in worldbuilding. However, with the right script, it’s plausible that Minority Report could have been reframed within the cinematic world of Total Recall. Combining these two unique landscapes also offers endless narrative possibilities, and it’s exciting to imagine what other stories could have been told in a potential franchise had this idea made it into production.

Why Total Recall 2 Never Happened

The Project Never Got Off The Ground

Hughes further outlined (via Gizmodo) the background behind Total Recall 2 to reveal that the reason the film never happened was that Carolco Pictures struggled to secure financing for the project before going bankrupt in 1995. Schwarzenegger himself was also not very enthusiastic about returning as Quaid, as the subsequent years saw him achieving great success in releases like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Last Action Hero, and True Lies. Once the rights to “The Minority Report” were bought by Miramax in 1997, writer Goldman and Ronald Shusett removed the Total Recall elements from their script.

With plans for a Total Recall sequel all but abandoned, Jon Cohen was brought in to write a script for a standalone feature at the same time Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise were searching for a project to collaborate on. Spielberg was originally supposed to direct Cruise in Rain Man, but he ended up dropping out to make Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In 1998, Spielberg and Cruise committed to making Minority Report, although the production was delayed for several years and the director made Saving Private Ryan and A.I. Artificial Intelligence during the intervening years.

Minority Report Ending Up With Spielberg & Cruise Was For The Best

There’s No Need To Rewrite History When It Comes To Minority Report

The idea of Minority Report reimagined as a Total Recall sequel offers plenty of exciting possibilities, but the truth is that things worked out exactly how they should have. While Spielberg’s filmography includes some of the best sci-fi movies of all time, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurᴀssic Park, the neo-noir stylings of Minority Report made it one of his best releases in the 2000s. Cruise also did a great job as Chief John Anderton, and his sleek, stunt-based action hero persona is strikingly different than the muscle-clad talents of Schwarzenegger.

While Total Recall dealt with themes of memory and idenтιтy, the free will versus determinism ideas posed by Minority Report were wrestling with far different questions. As Spielberg’s first movie in the post-9/11 era, Minority Report’s narrative about stopping crimes before they occur felt particularly relevant and was a prime case of the right movie at the right time. As a satirical, philosophical, and thought-provoking release from two Hollywood тιтans, Minority Report falling into the hands of Spielberg and Cruise was for the best and there’s no reason to go back and change the past in this story.

Source: Gizmodo