Danny Boyle, the Oscar-winning director, is closing in on a plan to shoot Porno, the follow up to his 1996 classic.
The novel, written by Irvine Welsh, continues the story of the characters of Trainspotting – Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud – ten years on.
It shows how the characters, still based in Edinburgh, become involved in making a home-made pornographic film.
Yesterday Robert Carlyle, the actor who portrayed the aggressive lunatic Begbie, said that Boyle, who won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, was “edging closer” to translating Porno to the big screen.
Carlyle, said he would “jump through hoops of fire backwards” for the film-maker and would “do Porno tomorrow for nothing.”
He said Begbie was “probably the only character I would ever want to revisit because I do believe that there’s an awful lot more mileage there in Begbie.”
Carlyle added: “I think there is lots more entertainment to be had from that group of people so I would be up for it, and I know Danny seems to be edging more towards it.
“After his success at the Oscars, he should be able to pretty much do as he wants.”
Boyle said recently that a Porno script was in development. If he is close to making a sequel it would provide a welcome boost for the Scottish film scene, which has not had a commercial hit for some time.
Large parts of Trainspotting were shot in Glasgow, but Porno is largely set in Edinburgh. Both cities could benefit from location shooting of Porno in Scotland.
Boyle had previously said he had waited so long to make the sequel so that the original acting team, which also included Ewen Bremner and Jonny Lee Miller, could naturally age ten years so that they looked right to return in the same roles.
However, a key element in the success or failure of the movie would lie in the critical role of Renton.
Ewan McGregor, whose career was sparked by his portrayal of Renton in Trainspotting, may not be as keen to appear in the movie.
He is reported to have fallen out with Boyle when he was not chosen to play the lead in Boyle’s version of Alex Garland’s novel, The Beach. The pair have not worked together since 1997.
He has previously said in interviews that a sequel to Trainspotting would be a “terrible shame”. Last year he said: “I didn’t think the book (Porno) was very good. The novel of Trainspotting was quite fantastic. It was beautiful, quite moving and disturbing writing. And then I find that the sequel didn’t move me as much.”
McGregor is currently starring opposite George Clooney in The Men Who Stare At Goats, which will be screened at this year’s London Film Festival.
Irvine Welsh has recently said he is working on a Trainspotting “prequel”.
He said he had resurrected notes he had discarded about the lives of Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie and the rest of the main characters from Trainspotting before the events of the book, and was working with them again.
“I am working on a prequel,” said the writer, who now mainly lives in Ireland and the US.
“I worked on it at the time I was writing Trainspotting but it was shelved as I just didn’t have the time to finish it.”
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