Choose life. Choose a job. Choose Trainspotting 2? Perhaps that’s not exactly how it unfolded, but over the weekend Deadline brought word that after work on his anticipated Steve Jobs biopic wraps up, Danny Boyle will delve back into the oft-impenetrable syntax of Irvine Welsh’s literary work for the long-gestating sequel.
In the director’s own words, it appears as though Trainspotting 2 is closer to production than ever before, and it’s now “only a matter of getting all their schedules together which is complicated by two of them doing American TV series.” Out of the four delinquents that toplined the 1996 classic, Johnny Lee Miller (Sick Boy) is toiling away on Elementary, while Robert Carlyle (Begbie) remains a series regular on ABC’s Once Upon A Time. Nevertheless, Boyle did note that all four actors – Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner complete the quartet – are on board for the follow-up, which would take cues from Welsh’s own Trainspotting 2, Porno.
Released in 2002, the literary sequel picks up a full decade after the events of the original, where Renton (McGregor) has set up shop and established a nightclub in Amsterdam; Spud (Bremner) is on the verge of suicide; Sick Boy (Miller) is raking in lucrative amounts of money via adult entertainment; and Begbie (Carlyle) is just released from a prolonged spell behind bars.
Returning to adapt Welsh’s work is John Hodge, and Boyle has claimed that the scribe’s early, yet-to-be-completed draft of the follow-up is already “terrific.” Should the creative team manage to assemble the cast in due time, Trainspotting 2 could hit theaters a full 20 years after its original, and we can only imagine what escapades Welsh and Hodge have in store for the eccentric Edinburghians.
Trainspotting 2 is still some time out from pulling into theaters, though Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs will make its bow on October 9.