“T2 Trainspotting” is now playing, serving fans a warm dose of nostalgia in a film that earns its trip down memory lane, and even makes light of being a “tourist in your own youth.” While author Irvine Welsh has penned a proper sequel to “Trainspotting” in “Porno,” and a prequel with “Skagboys,” the new film conjures a fresh story with a script by John Hodge. It’s a tale that lives up to the wild antics of Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie, but spikes it with dose of wistful melancholy; it’s quite well done. However, director Danny Boyle reveals once upon a time, the filmmakers considered taking an easier path toward making a followup to “Trainspotting.”
Chatting with Vulture, Boyle says that a direct adaptation of “Porno” was tabled, and a script was even written, but the driving reason to make the movie was more for commercial purposes than artistic ones.
“We tried, ten years ago, I think for the wrong reasons, and it wasn’t very good. And by the wrong reasons, it was just — not habit, but business reasons, I suppose. Irvine [Welsh] had published a book about the characters ten years later, and you go, There’s an opportunity. So we adapted it, and it was fine. I’m sure as a script it would stand up against other scripts, but it just felt like a really not-good-enough reason to go back into it,” Boyle explained.
“…they make a porn movie as a scam. It’s got some of the similar ingredients: Renton returns. I can’t remember whether Begbie’s in jail, I think he probably is. So what surrounds it is the making of a porn movie. And we did all that, and they ended up at Cannes at the end, at the Adult Film Festival in Cannes,” he added. “So it was hijinks, it was a kind of caper, but it felt really not-good-enough, so we abandoned it.”
Indeed, that does sound a lot more episodic and perhaps unbelievable for a followup, especially in contrast to the story now that’s a lot more grounded, and has a much lower-level caper at its core. Overall, it looks like Boyle and co. made the right decision, and they’ve truly made a followup worthy of the original.