The ‘Trainspotting’ sequel finally has a trailer, and it looks really amazing

It’s not every day that a hugely popular cult classic from over two decades ago gets the first trailer for its sequel. But for fans of Trainspotting, the beloved, career-launching Danny Boyle film, that day is today. The Trainspotting sequel finally has a full trailer, and it’s just as bonkers and incredible as we expected.

The original film, based on the novel of the same name by Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh, was released back in 1996 and followed a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh. It effectively launched the careers of Boyle – who’d go on to make Academy Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire – and several members of the cast, including our forever-crush Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle, who’d go on to a fan-favorite role in Once Upon a Time.

The cast of the first film returned for the sequel, which takes place 20 years after the shocking/disturbing/emotional/bonkers events of the earlier movie.

Homages to the original are all over the trailer, right down to the “Choose life” speech that main character Mark Renton gives in the trailer-spanning voiceover, an obvious call-back to the “Choose life” speech of the original’s opening.

The trailer for the new movie finds Renton (Ewan McGregor) heading back to his old home to rejoin his old friends. Based on Sick Boy’s reaction to seeing him, it’s clear that they haven’t had much contact over the past two decades. That makes sense, given how the first film ended.

Renton is (allegedly) no longer a heroin addict (which was basically the centerpiece of the first movie), so we’ll see how that changes his relationship with the others he left behind – if it changes anything at all. Despite the apparent estrangement, things quickly get chaotic, which is just about what we expected of a sequel to Trainspotting.

Here’s the film’s official synopsis:

"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."

While it’s easy to get lost in the age of too-many-sequels, it’s obvious that this is the best possible way to do a follow-up film. The script is loosely based on the sequel to the original novel, Porno. Just about everyone involved in the earlier film is returning as well, right down to the original screenwriter, John Hodge. Carlyle, who plays the sociopath Begbie, even called the sequel’s screenplay “one of the best scripts [he’s] ever fucking read.”

We were already excited about T2 based solely on how pumped the original cast and crew seemed about returning for it. Now that we’ve seen the full trailer, we’re even more thrilled about the new movie.

T2: Trainspotting is set for release on January 27th in the UK, February 3rd in the US, and February 10th worldwide.