'Trainspotting' Series Focused On Begbie In The Works

Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting” was based on the provocative novel by Scottish author Irvine Welsh, which chronicled a group of young Scots navigating heroin addiction and paying for it any way they can. A direct sequel, “T2: Trainspotting,” was released in 2017, which Boyle again directed, an adaptation of Welsh’s novel “Porno.”

Now, it sounds like there might be a third incarnation coming in the near future. Actor Robert Carlyle has revealed to NME that Welsh is developing a television series focused on Frank Begbie and might be six hour-long episodes.

The proposed television project is based on Welsh’s novel “The Blade Artist,” where reformed violent criminal Begbie changes his name to Jim Francis, moves his family to Los Angeles, California, and becomes an artist. However, he’s called back to Edinburgh, Scotland, to attend the funeral of his estranged son that has been murdered, and there are expectations he’ll attempt to get revenge.

“Irvine [Welsh] and myself have been chatting quite a lot recently with a couple of excellent producers in London about [continuing the Trainspotting story]. As you know there was another book called ‘The Blade Artist’ which is just entirely about Begbie and his mad story. It’s still in its early moments but it’s looking pretty good that this will happen eventually.”

Robert Carlyle is expected to reprise the role; however, he fails to mention where it might land. Danny Boyle isn’t mentioned either, but he’s been busy with a Sex Pistols show for FX, titled “Pistol,” and after two “Trainspotting” films, he may just have moved on.

Here is the official synopsis for “The Blade Artist” from Penguin Books:

“Jim Francis has finally found the perfect life – and is now unrecognizable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters, in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he’s a fake and a con man, while others see him as a genuine visionary. But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland, for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge. But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies – and, most alarmingly, his former self – Francis seems to have other ideas. When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California, which indicates that her husband’s violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad, very quickly.”