Speaking to UKScreen in Beverly Hills while promoting his new movie Trance, Danny Boyle confirmed that he was working on a script for a sequel to Trainspotting with screenwriter John Hodge, who penned the original. It will be loosely based on Irvine Welsh’s Porno, his follow-up novel to his original Trainspotting.

Since its release in 1996, Trainspotting has become a cult film and its drug-consuming characters have become engraved in the minds of millions of fans. “People remember Begbie the villain and Renton and Sick Boy and Spud,” Boyle enthused proudly. “And that’s amazing because the film is 17 years old now. And it’s coming up to the 20 year anniversary, so I think that might be a very good time to make it.”

The Oscar-winning film-maker admitted that making the sequel to Trainspotting was invariably on his mind, but he was waiting for the actors to age sufficiently to justify it. “Because we would have something cogent to actually work upon, which is the passage of time,” he said. “What’s done to these people who in their early 20s were hedonists and were prepared to take enormous risks with what they put into their bodies and how they behaved. And of course when you get in your 40s, that’s not quite so easy. There’s not quite as many guarantees you’ll get away with it. And it’s also about what they have done with their time in that time.”

Boyle added that he is yet to contact the original cast, including Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner and Kelly Macdonald. “We have to get the script ready and then approach all actors,” he said.

The 56-year-old director is about to release his psychological thriller Trance, starring his new girlfriend, 33-year-old Rosario Dawson, whom he started dating during the shoot, alongside James McAvoy and Vincent Cassel.

Trance is Boyle’s first released film since he presided over the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games, although he did shoot it prior the games in 2011 but only did the post production after the games.