Danny Boyle’s next film, Trance, gets a 2013 release date

Danny Boyle‘s last film was 127 HOURS from way back in 2010. Since then he has directed an incredible stage version of FRANKENSTEIN with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller as well as the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremonies. As speculation dies down about him possibly helming a James Bond film, we do get word about his already wrapped film TRANCE.

TRANCE finished shooting in 2011, but will finally get a release in the UK on March 27th, 2013 with a North American release sometime later in the year. The movie stars James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, and Vincent Cassel and is billed as a return to thriller territory for Boyle.

Plot: Fine art auctioneer Simon (McAvoy), in league with a gang led by underworld boss Franck (Cassel), plots the audacious theft of a masterpiece by Goya from a major public auction. When Simon double-crosses the gang during the robbery, Franck retaliates violently and knocks him unconscious.

In the aftermath of the heist, Simon sticks stubbornly – and perhaps shrewdly – to his claim that the violent trauma has left him with no memory of where he stashed the artwork. Unable to coerce the painting’s location from Simon, Franck and his associates reluctantly join forces with a charismatic hypnotherapist (Dawson) in a bid to get him to talk. But as they journey deeper into Simon’s jumbled psyche the boundaries between reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur and the stakes rise faster and far more dangerously than any of the players could have anticipated.

While that doesn’t sound much like SHALLOW GRAVE or TRAINSPOTTING, it does sound a lot darker than Boyle’s recent output. John Hodge, who scripted SHALLOW GRAVE and TRAINSPOTTING with Boyle, wrote TRANCE as well.

A new Danny Boyle film is always reason to get excited. Here is to hoping we get a confirmed release date for the US soon!