Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Let’s get all the train-related puns out of the way: The sequel to Trainspotting is expected to depart providing a platform for the cast can be found. Make sure you buy a ticket in advance.
Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle has said that he hopes to reunite the cast of his 1996 breakout movie but is waiting for them to age (note to Hollywood execs: that is one hell of a creative way to get out of greenlighting a project).
The likes of Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald all saw their stock rise from a highly creative piece of work based on Irvine Welsh’s novel, which was in turns hilarious and harrowing. Boyle feels that, “It will happen, I think. I mean, we’ll approach them all again about it, but it will depend on what place they’re all at. We have a very strong idea that it would be a wonderful thing to re-approach, to do again, when they have aged clearly into a mid-life kind of crisis, basically. They’re not quite there yet, I don’t think.”
(See pictures of Ewan McGregor.)
Keen readers among you will now exclaim that the sequel has already been written. Welsh penned Porno, though McGregor has previously said he doesn’t think it works up on screen. Boyle, who has a somewhat interesting relationship with McGregor as they didn’t always see eye to eye on The Beach, agreed with his leading man. “He’s right of course that the book, Porno, is not a great book in the way that Trainspotting, the original novel, is genuinely a masterpiece, I think, as a piece of writing. But we have been doing some work on it, and it’s got potential for sure.”
NewsFeed has much love for Messrs. Boyle and McGregor (to say nothing of a serious soft spot for Trainspotting) so offers the following note of caution with respect. One of the standout scenes was McGregor’s character of Renton discussing the elusive quality of greatness with the charmingly named Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller). Renton asks his friend to explain what he means when he says that, “It’s certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.” Sick Boy continues: “Well, at one time, you’ve got it, and then you lose it, and it’s gone forever.”
What should we extrapolate from that? Be very wary of making a sequel if you think it’s going to diminish the audience’s love for the original. And as McGregor’s resume includes a certain Star Wars trilogy, he understands the danger all too well. (via Monsters & Critics)