There are some films which do not require a sequel – take Weekend at Bernie’s II, for example – but Trainspotting is not one of them.
Ever since 2002, when Irvine Welsh wrote a companion piece for Trainspotting – a novel entitled Porno featuring Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud ten years on – the screen realisation has been feverishly anticipated. That’s because of the material and the talent involved, rather than the unfortunate connotations of its name on a movie poster.
Danny Boyle and John Hodge’s adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s most famous novel burst on to the screen at the height of Britpop, and made stars of all the principle actors who have hardly stopped working in the intervening decade-and-a-half. Of all the stars, the biggest was arguably Boyle who went from promising director to the UK’s outstanding British film-maker of the 21st century, with a versatility not displayed by his peers.
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Christopher Nolan, Sir Ridley and Tony Scott, Sam Mendes, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh haven’t skipped from sci-fi (Sunshine), northern English tales (Millions), screwball comedy (A Life Less Ordinary), travelogue adventures (The Beach, 127 Hours), zombie thriller (28 Days Later) and films about the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? with the sense of play that Boyle has. What he hasn’t done is return to the source of his breakthrough. That has not been his fault, nor that of Begbie, nor Sick Boy, nor probably Spud. In October 2003, Robert Carlyle told The Word magazine: "I would do it and I know Jonny (Lee Miller) and Danny Boyle would do it too. "There's one vital cog missing." That vital cog can be reasonably assumed to be Renton. Ewan McGregor fell out with the director when he cast Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach. McGregor, who has since been reconciled with Boyle, told Radio 5Live’s entertainment reporter Colin Paterson at last weekend’s Independent Spirit Awards that he’s sick of taking the blame for the gridlock. At 2 hours 24 minutes into the 5Live clip, McGregor – who was standing three metres away from the director at the time – says “Come on, Danny. Where’s the script?”, before adding “I suppose [it’s possible] in the same way that anything’s a possibility.” Things have changed from the days in 2003 when McGregor said a Trainspotting sequel would be “a terrible shame”. He is taking more character parts after years as a leading man, with smaller roles in Ron Howard’s sequel to The Da Vinci Code and in Bryan Singer’s next film, Jack The Giant Killer. The problem for those awaiting Porno is that Boyle’s star has gone stratospheric after Slumdog. Although the director said in 2009 that he was “edging closer” to the idea, that was before the National Theatre asked him to direct his current project Frankenstein, before The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy started giving Boyle all his scripts as a first option, and before Boyle was asked to oversee the artistic element of the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony. The man who once shot the “Choose Life” scene has choices. Whether he’ll choose to make a film based in Leith with references to the then Hibs manager Alex McLeish and former midfielder Matthias Jack is now, if you believe McGregor, almost certainly up to him.Find out about donating to The Caledonian Mercury
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