Irvine Welsh Says He Wants To Do A Third Trainspotting Film

Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, has said that a third film to complete the 'Holy Trinity' would be 'massively interesting' to him.

Original characters Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie first hit the big screen in 1996, before Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and the gang reunited two years ago for T2 Trainspotting. The group of friends (and I use that term loosely) are all addicted to either drugs or alcohol and the films follow their journeys of trying to get off their various drugs, and stay off them.

The second film, based on the follow-up novel, was released in 2017 and followed on from the cult classic, which was directed by Danny Boyle. The long awaited sequel saw a return from the original cast and director.

Scottish novelist Welsh has said that there could be more left of the story to tell. In a recent interview on the Anything Goes podcast he spoke about other movies that came in trilogies.

He said: "You think the Godfather III, Terminator III - there's the temptation to do the Holy Trinity, it might evoke Danny's inner Catholic.

"It took us long enough to work up the bottle to do number two. They'll all be in the rest home by the time we had the bottle to do number three.

"We'd have to get moving on it pretty quickly. But it's something that would be massively interesting to me."

The author also said that he'd be quite up for doing a spin off based on Robert Carlyle's character Begbie.

Begbie, a violent alcoholic, is not addicted to heroin, unlike the other characters. However he looks down on the rest of them for their addictions. Begbie appears in Skagboys - the prequel novel to Trainspotting, as well as 2016 novel The Blade Artist.

Welsh said: "The one I would like to do is a Begbie stand-alone. Just a short 90-minute film of Robert Carlyle going nuts."

Discussing how happy he was with T2 Trainspotting, he said: "I'm massively impressed and delighted by it. Obviously, I've got a vested interest in it, so you might as well take what I've got to say with a pinch of salt! But yeah, I'm happy with it. I think it's a much stronger film than the original."