Photo: Michael Gibson/Columbia Pictures Industries
When Colin Farrell landed the lead role in August's remake of Total Recall, most people had one question for him. It wasn't how he would handle playing the same character that Arnold Schwarzenegger played in 1990. Or how closely the movie would hew to Paul Verhoeven's camp classic. They wanted to know whether the update would feature a three-breasted woman, the most notorious sight gag in the earlier film.
The two movies have a similar setup: Douglas Quaid seeks out the services of a memory-implantation business, which ends up excavating his own previously wiped memories of being a spy. But unlike the Verhoeven version, in which Quaid heads to Mars, reboot director Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard) keeps the hero bound to a dystopian-future Earth.
While the new film has its share of straight-up action, the tone is darker and more paranoiac, harking back to Total Recall's source material, the Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." In other words, don't expect snappy Ah-nuld-style one-liners.
But there were some things Wiseman had to include—like a certain freakishly endowed female.
"The first thing people said was 'If there's not a three-breasted woman in this movie, I'm not seeing it,'" Wiseman says. "It's too fun and iconic not to do a twist on it. Every boy on the planet probably remembers that."
In other words: She'll be back.
