A sequel to Trainspotting has long been mooted, although with Danny Boyle reaching national treasure status, and years passing without any concrete proposals being mooted, we had started to lose hope of again seeing our Scottish chums on the big screen.
However, Boyle is still very much interested in a sequel, and has revealed plans to reunite the original cast for a second outing in 2016.
“This has been a long time coming,” Boyle told The Playlist (opens in new tab) . “There’s always been this long term plan for Trainspotting 2 , if John [ Hodge ] can produce a decent enough script, I don’t think there will be any barriers to Ewan [ McGregor ] or any of the cast coming back. I think they’ll wanna know that the parts are good so they don’t feel like they are letting anyone down.
“The reason for doing it again is that people cherish the original, people remember it or have caught up with it if they never saw because they were younger. So you want to make sure you don’t disappoint people. That will be the only criteria I think.”
As to what the sequel will cover, Irvine Welsh’s follow-up Porno would seem to offer an obvious starting point. However, Boyle is keen to avoid a straight adaptation.
“It’s very loosely based on Porno ,” says Boyle. “There’s a couple of things that are based on the book, but obviously we’d have to have Irvine on board. The ideal time would be Porno in 2016, because it was 1996 when Trainspotting came out. Twenty years, it’s like ‘wow, where did that go?’”