Bryan Alexander

USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — It didn’t matter who director Danny Boyle spoke to about making a sequel to his 1996 film Trainspotting, the response was the same: Don’t muck up the legacy of a classic British film.

“The expectations could be almost crippling. People would be like, 'We love the original. If you screw this up and ruin it, we’ll kill you,' ” says Boyle, 60. “That was absolutely evident. No matter what they said, you could read in their eyes.”

T2 Trainspotting enters theaters Friday (in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto), more than two decades after the heralded original exploded upon the cultural landscape. It faces the daunting legacy of the $2 million film that shot Boyle and its young stars (Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle and Ewen Bremner) to fame with a musically amped-up story revolving around the Scottish heroin scene.

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“Trainspotting was a turning point for all of us,” says Boyle, who won a best director Oscar for 2008's Slumdog Millionaire and has directed films such as 127 Hours and Steve Jobs.

He's surprised that there wasn’t talk right away about jumping into a sequel.

“Maybe the business was a bit more naïve then,” Boyle says. “Now they would have been right on it, anything that works. Boom, and off you go.”

Irvine Welsh, author of the book upon which the first movie was based, wrote follow-up novel Porno in 2002, revisiting the characters. The film's creative team considered going back as well, with original screenwriter John Hodge pulling together a Porno-based script.

“It was probably OK,” says Boyle. “But when we read it, it felt terrible, a rehash without any purpose."

Boyle didn’t even send the script to the actors. The project died. But as the 20th anniversary loomed, he felt re-inspired to pick up the story, thinking, “This is the last chance.” Hodge, Boyle and other members of the team banged out the story framework, focusing on Trainspotting's middle-aged characters dealing with the passing of time, the dangers of nostalgia and life's regrets.

He personally contacted each actor and laid out the terms: equal pay, regardless of star status, and no glamorizing the passed time. “We’re not going to cover any bald patches or crow's feet. No Hollywood makeup,” says Boyle.

If any of the four said no, the project would have been killed. They all jumped in. Boyle was emotionally struck when they returned to shoot a scene in the remote Corrour railway station.

"Of course, nothing has changed, because for nature, 20 years is nothing. The bridge they were standing on, the wood, exactly the same," says Boyle. "It was like we stood on this wood 20 years ago and made a film that's changed all our lives. It’s a reckoning."

The British reckoning for T2, which opened in January, was strongly favorable. The Guardian echoed the original movie's famed "Choose Life" speech, proclaiming, "Choose a sequel that doesn't disappoint."

Now, Boyle doesn't rule out revisiting the characters again one day.

"Provided we make it past the BS test: Is there is a real reason to do it?" says Boyle. "If it passes that test, there would be no reason not to."