Trainspotting - The US Version

It has long been a tradition to take an English made movie or TV show and Americanize it. The most recent glaring example being the TV show The Office which was a re-make of the English version starring Ricky Gervais. When an import from England is Americanized some changes have to me made to account for the differences in culture. For instance the original book and movie Fever Pitch was about soccer but the American version of the movie was about baseball.

I bring this up because it occurred to me that perhaps the best way to capture the current HGH problem in baseball would be to re-make the 1996 English movie Trainspotting. The original story was how a bunch of friends dealt with heroin addiction but the American version could easily have a change in drug of choice.

Two things made me think the re-make could work. First you could rename the main character Clemens instead of Renton but the scene of the main character being sucked down the toilet by his drug use could pretty much remain intact. In fact can you think of anything that better symbolizes the state that "Clemens" currently finds himself in than being literally sucked down a toilet? Plus in the original the main character goes to London for a fresh start - in the remake we can have the main character move to Houston.

Secondly you have the character Tommy in the original movie who was a clean living athlete who gets introduced to drugs by Renton (nee Clemens) and whose life falls apart because of the drugs. In the remake we could call this character Pettitte.

Just using these two things as a starting point could lead to a successful remake if you ask me.

I'm not sure who could play the Begbie character in the re-make.