Trainspotting 2, or T2 to give it its proper title, is the eagerly anticipated sequel to Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, the cult classic that made stars of Ewan McGregor Ewen Bremner. Johnny Lee Miller, and Robert Carlyle. It’s been 2o years since Trainspotting‘s release, and the sequel has been rumored for most of that time. It’s finally happened, and T2 will arrive in theaters in early 2017.
T2 will reunite the original cast, with Boyle as director once more, and it’s fair to say that the movie is under a lot of pressure to deliver what fans want to see; which is essentially more of the same but in a more modern setting, with a closer look at how (or if) the characters have grown up. The first, very short, teaser for T2 has now been released online and can be viewed, below.
Said teaser (via The Guardian) doesn’t show much at all, really, other than the four central characters; McGregor’s Renton, Bremner’s Spud, Miller’s Sick Boy, and Carlyle’s Begbie, standing on a train platform while a train rumbles slowly past, but it’s the whole style of the teaser that’s gotten fans excited.
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Firstly, it’s set to Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life”, the song that formed an iconic part of the Trainspotting soundtrack in 1996, and which famously played in the background of Renton’s “Choose Life” opening monologue. Scenes similar to the Choose Life sequence were recently filmed in Edinburgh, prompting speculation that we might see a recreation of it in T2. Secondly, the teaser ends with the familiar orange and white line-up style picture, again reminiscent of Trainspotting‘s original promotional material.
So far, not much is known about the plot of T2, and any filming photos haven’t really given any detail away. Boyle says it’s loosely based on Irvine Welsh’s follow-up novel, “Porno”, in which Sick Boy asks for Renton’s help to make a porn movie, but where T2 will go with that is anyone’s guess. Begbie, we know, is not long out of prison, and how he’s managing to stand still on a train platform without launching an attack on Sick Boy is anyone’s guess, but it’ll be great to see how the dynamic of the group has altered over the years, and whether their time apart has affected them in any way. Is Sick Boy more responsible? Did Renton manage to hold down a job? Is Spud any less clueless? And did prison have a reformative effect on Begbie?
Well, the last one’s unlikely, but one thing is certain; McGregor has only the highest praise for the script, written by John Hodge, who also wrote the screenplays for other Boyle films; Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, and A Life Less Ordinary. The actor was also adamant that all the cast and crew felt like now was the right time to return, with twenty years having passed, and with a strong script in place, so everyone working on the sequel is just as invested as the fans are, who can’t wait to see T2 brought to the big screen.
T2 opens in U.K. theaters on January 27th, 2017 and in U.S. theaters for a limited theatrical release on February 3rd, 2017, before it goes into wide release a week later.
