Kurt Wimmer is no stranger to sci-fi, but unfortunately he can be real hit-and-miss. His 2002 movie “Equilibrium” (starring a then relatively unknown Christian Bale) oozed coolness out of every celluloid pore, but 2006’s “Ultraviolet” with Milla Jovovich was so indulgent as to be unwatchable. Fortunately for Wimmer, the heavy miss of “Ultraviolet” (which he wrote and directed) hasn’t stopped Columbia Pictures from tapping him to pen the remake of Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 sci-fi actioner “Total Recall”.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Columbia has given Wimmer the go-ahead to write the remake, which is being called a “contemporized adaptation”, whatever that means. The original starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, and was based on a Philip K. Dick story called “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”. In it, the Governator played a construction worker who becomes convinced he’s actually a secret agent from Mars, and once he recovers his memories thanks to a trip to a place that implants fake memories, finds himself the target of assassins. He’s forced to go to Mars to find the truth.

A very young Sharon Stone played Arnold’s wife, who also tries to kill him.