Proving it’s not just beloved ’80s and ’90s blockbusters getting the sequel treatment these days, Danny Boyle is very interested in finally making that Trainspotting sequel the world has been asking him about for 20 years. According to Deadline, Boyle thinks the script for Trainspotting 2 is “terrific” and says that all four main actors are interested in coming back. “Now it is only a matter of getting all their schedules together,” Boyle explained, “which is complicated by two of them doing American TV series.”
When it comes to scheduling, Jonny Lee Miller is currently starring as Sherlock Holmes on Elementary, while Robert Carlyle is regularly being spray-painted gold on Once Upon A Time. Presumably it would be easier for free agent Ewan McGregor to fit the film in without a network TV show schedule to contend with. Kelly Macdonald, meanwhile, recently wrapped up Boardwalk Empire, but Ewen Bremner just signed up as one of the leads in an upcoming HBO pilot. And while it seems unlikely that Kevin McKidd will be returning for the sequel given the events of the first film, for the record he’s currently starring on Grey’s Anatomy.
The new script was once again written by John Hodge, who adapted the first movie from Irvine Welsh’s novel. The sequel is based on Welsh’s own follow-up, Porno, which takes place 10 years after the events of the first book and centers on pornography rather than heroin. In 2013, however, Boyle explained the sequel would only be loosely based on Porno as it’s “not a great book in the way that Trainspotting, the original novel, is genuinely a masterpiece.”
Boyle has previously named 2016 as his ideal year to release the sequel—exactly 20 years after the original story of addicts in Edinburgh made the world simultaneously terrified and intrigued by heroin. Should all the scheduling conflicts work out, Boyle plans to make Trainspotting 2 his next project following the release of Steve Jobs.