Jumping ship

Initially, David Cronenberg was set to direct the picture, though he didn’t last very long.

The filmmaker left the project early into the film's development, with "creative differences" he had with TriStar Pictures being cited as the reason for his departure.

Even so, David later said the real reason he dropped out of the movie was because the studio felt he was being too faithful to Philip K. Dick's book, and revealed the producers wanted to make a flick he described as "Raiders of the Lost Ark Go to Mars".

He recalled: "Eventually we got to a point where Ron Shusett said, 'You know what you've done? You've done the Philip K. Dick version.' I said, 'Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?'"