Danny Boyle obviously became famous stateside for the rock n’ roll tone of his second feature-length film, “Trainspotting,” which did merge and feature a lot of now iconic movie-music moments (with Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Underworld, New Order, etc.).
In the spring of 2007, Boyle talked about the possibility to a film sequel via Irvine Welsh’s (the author of “Trainspotting”) Porno,” which revisited the same characters in his heroin drama nine years later (characters from Welsh’s “Glue” were also present). He evidently secured the rights to the novel and now is just waiting for the right time and or, the actors to finally agree.
“Trainspotting” came out in 1996, so it’s been twelve years no, but a few years ago, Ewan McGregor was against the idea. own sequel, “”They can go ahead and do it if they want, but it will be without me on board.” McGregor added that he was “very proud” of “Trainspotting” and didn’t want to do anything that might harm its reputation. “I read Porno and I didn’t think it was as good as Trainspotting. There was nothing new in it.”
Talking to Cinematical (who sound overly optimistic about its chances), Boyle hinted that he’s sort of waiting for the actors to change their mind.
“We’ve had this plan for awhile now to make a film that’s generational; how they would be guys now who were clearly and visibly middle aged. Well, what’s just happened in Britain is that they’re preparing to release a new DVD of [Trainspotting], and they’ve done a series of interviews for the special features on the DVD … and good news is all the actors have come back to participate in these interviews. So I think that’s a sign that if we do get them looking right, they’ll be prepared to do it — that they’re getting to a point where they’re thinking, ‘Yeah, that could be interesting.’ Because everyone will have to be in the right frame of mind in order to do it; they need to age a bit still. I want them to feel different … and older.”
Translation: in a few years, when they feel less precious about (i.e. McGregor), hopefully they’ll have changed their minds and want to do it). Frankly McGregor could do worse. Around the time of “Trainspotting” he was on his way to becoming another DiCaprio-like young actor of his generation, but ever since “Phantom Menace,” he’s been seemingly trapped in a closet of bad roles and bad decisions. He also became a father early on and perhaps lost his edge and or hunger, but he was destined for great things so, “Porno/Trainspotting 2” or not, we hope he finds his footing again.
Our favorite movie-music moment from the film is probably the toilet scene which masterfully used Brian Eno’s “Deep Blue Day,” which has always been one our favorite tracks from his 1983 album, Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks which was produced by Daniel Lanois (u2).