Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie, the four low-life Edinburghers who chose life, family and a f**king big television a decade ago, are on the verge of staging a reunion with today’s first teaser for Danny Boyle’s long-awaited sequel, Trainspotting 2.
Now deep in production ahead of a release in January of next year, Sony Pictures has unveiled the first snippet for T2, featuring much less Judgement Day and more footage from Boyle’s original jet-black comedy of ’96, including an erratic Begbie and the famous scene of Renton (Ewan McGregor) emerging from a grubby toilet spewing all manner of filth.
Much like Trainspotting itself, the follow-up will be based on Irvine Welsh’s lierary work; specifically, the novel sequel Porno, which checks in on Renton and Co. a full ten years after the events in Edinburgh. Rounding out the core ensemble with Ewan McGregor are Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner and Robert Carlyle, and if it wasn’t for a “really, really, really good script,” Trainspotting 2 may never have come to pass in the first place.
Said McGregor:
“The script was really, really, really good. I think, if that had not happened, none of us would be into it. I think we’re all sort of somewhat protective of what Trainspotting means to people, and what it means to us. None of us want to make a poor sequel to it. So had we not been presented with the most extraordinary script, which we were, I think we wouldn’t be making the sequel. But because we were, we are.”
Trainspotting 2 has been penciled in for a release in UK cinemas in January of 2017, with a North American bow expected in and around the same window.