Original Release: January 22, 2017 (Scotland)
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Written by: John Hodge, Irvine Welsh
Produced by: Bernard Bellew, Danny Boyle, Christian Colson, Andrew Macdonald
Running Time: 117 minutes
Box Office: $33,351,909 (Worldwide)
First there was an opportunity......then there was a betrayal. Twenty years have gone by. Much has changed but just as much remains the same. Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to the only place he can ever call home.
They are waiting for him: Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle). Other old friends are waiting too: sorrow, loss, joy, vengeance, hatred, friendship, love, longing, fear, regret, diamorphine, self-destruction and mortal danger, they are all lined up to welcome him, ready to join the dance.
Ewan McGregor (Renton), Ewen Bremner (Spud), Shirley Henderson (Gail), Jonny Lee Miller (Simon), Anjela Nedyalkova (Veronika), Kelly Macdonald (Diane), James Cosmo (Renton's Father), Steven Robertson (Stoddart), Irvine Welsh (Mikey Forrester)
Filming Locations: (view all)
- Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
- Glasgow, Scotland, UK
- Bulgaria
- Danny Boyle has credited David Bowie with helping to be able to use various hit songs in the original movie inexpensively because he had ties with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, and helped Boyle out because he was a fan of Shallow Grave (1994). For his own little personal tribute to him following his death, Boyle decided to shoot a moment where Renton goes through his record collection and finds a couple of Bowie's albums. (In the novels, Renton is a fan of Bowie).
- Robert Carlyle kept away from his family in Glasgow while filming because he became so much like Begbie.
- Although Irvine Welsh wrote a follow-up to his novel Trainspotting in 2002 called 'Porno', this movie follow-up is actually only very loosely based on 'Porno.' It is mostly an original story which includes some unused parts of the Trainspotting novel, and some elements from Porno. That being said, during pre-production, this film was titled 'Porno.'
- The four main actors were not all available at the same time at the very beginning of principal photography, due to scheduling conflicts with other projects. Danny Boyle stated in interviews that the American TV careers of Jonny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle in particular made it a necessity to have a reduced filming schedule that could accommodate all four of the male leads.
- Irvine Welsh, who created the film's characters and wrote about them in the novels Trainspotting, Porno, and Skagboys, makes a cameo appearance in T2: Trainspotting as the character Mikey Forrester. Welsh also made a brief appearance in Trainspotting playing this same character.
Begbie: Give me the fucking tablets or I'll come through there and pound your fucking head in!
Begbie: World changes, eh, June? Even if we don't.
Begbie: Who's the fuckin smart cunt now!
Begbie: There's something I have to do tonight, and then I'm going away. One way or another, it'll be a long time before you see me again. So I just thought I'd come by. I just thought I'd come by and say good luck, son. That's all.
Frank Juror: Thanks, Dad.
Begbie: See, it's difficult for me, 'cause... We never had any of that when I was a boy. Not, like, hotel...
Frank Juror: Management.
Begbie: Aye, hotel fucking management, all that shit. I never has any of that. Still... World changes, eh, June? Even if we don't. So... Look after yourself, son.
Begbie: The old wino was my father. This fool is yours. You'll be a better man than either of us.
