To hear it from Danny Boyle, “Trainspotting 2” — he’s jokingly referred to it as ‘T2,’ but has confirmed it won’t be called "Porno" — is “on the runway,” meaning its taxiing and ready to go next summer (May or June shoot he told us). But Boyle already has a few follow-up projects lining up. Last year at SXSW during press for “Trance,” Boyle told us that he had two period piece projects in the works, but wouldn’t name what they were or share details.
With a little prodding this week during our “Steve Jobs” interview, the filmmaker acquiesced to our inquiries about the two projects. In interviews from last year Boyle had said he’d wanted to make a war film one day and that’s one of his “period” films, but it’s being tweaked for the small screen. It turns out it’s the semi-forgotten "Telemark" based on the story of the British-trained resistance fighters who sabotaged Hitler’s nuclear development program during World War II.
“There’s a World War II film down [in the queue],” he said. “It’s actually a television series. That’s a little further back in the food chain. There’s a couple of things that [‘Slumdog Millionaire‘ and ‘127 Hours‘] screenwriter Simon Beaufoy is working on. He’s a wonderful writer. He’s working on a couple of things at the moment which sound very, very promising.”
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Is one of them is "Ingenious Pain,” an adaptation of Andrew Miller‘s debut novel about a surgeon in the eighteenth century who can’t feel any pain? “Yes, that’s a wonderful novel,” Boyle said. “We’ve been involved in that for a couple of years now. That’s the other period project that’s actually percolating away.”
So, there’s the “Trainspotting” sequel, and two period piece films gearing up, but what about a return to the zombie/disease outbreak genre? Boyle has said several times that he was probably done with the “28 Days Later” franchise and would only remain on as an executive producer like he did with “28 Weeks Later” directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. But when asked if he would be willing to direct “28 Months Later” (or whatever it’s eventually called), the director suggested he could return to the series, but it would depend on the script.
“I’ve got no problem [with that],” he said. “It’s the usual thing: is it’s not about whether people think it’s a good idea that you’re directing. It’s whether you respond to the script or not. It’s just like on [‘Steve Jobs’]. I got the script and I went, ‘That was amazing. I hope I can add to that somehow and it be even better than just the experience of reading it.’ "
Filmmaker and “28 Days Later” creator/screenwriter Alex Garland told us he’s written the concept for "28 Months Later" and Boyle confirmed the development process has begun with original producer Andrew Macdonald. “It’s not quite ready to go, but, there’s been a bit of work done on that,” he said. “It’s in a process at the moment and I wouldn’t have any inhibition about being involved in it at all. It’s amazing what has happened to the zombie genre since we made it. There’s ‘Walking Dead.’ I saw this very funny trailer the other day for the ‘Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.’ A very funny trailer. It appears to be everywhere.”
“Steve Jobs” opens in limited release on Friday. More from this interview soon.