Before Paul Verhoeven cranked out Total Recall in 1990, producer Dino De Laurentiis approached David Cronenberg to direct the feature.  The project never came to fruition because Cronenberg’s vision never coincided with De Laurentiis’.  The two parted ways, Cronenberg went on to make The Fly, and Verhoeven made a movie where a woman has three boobs.  Wins all around.

But the question of “What If?” is always fascinating, and we’ve never had a chance to see what Cronenberg was planning until now.  Artist Ron Miller and his wife Judith Miller worked at De Laurentiis’ studio outside Rome, and the duo produced concept art and sculptures under the direction of production designer Pierluigi Basile (1982′s Conan the Barbarian).  Ron Miller has now released some of the designs he and his wife created along with some details on how Cronenberg planned to adapt the source material, Philip K. Dick‘s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”.  Hit the jump for more.