We reported last year that Trainspotting novelist Irvine Welsh was planning to follow up his darts film Good Arrows with a football-themed tale called The Magnificent Eleven, which combines the beautiful game with The Magnificent Seven.

Now, with Stealth Media Group busy rounding up sales deals and financing at the Berlin Film Festival, it looks like it’ll finally be ready to crank into production.

And Welsh has recruited a few cast members, including Sean Bean, Dougray Scott and ‘in a nice touch that truly links the comedy with its cinematic inspiration’, Robert Vaughn, the final surviving member of the Magnificent Seven role call.

Pete and John Adams wrote the script (which Welsh has joined them to polish) and the plot finds a local amateur football team trying to protect the owners of their favourite tandoori restaurant from bandits, or, in this case, a gang of thugs led by a nasty piece of work named Blond Bob.

There’s no word on when Welsh will get shooting, but with Vaughn on board, we’re looking forward to this one even more.

James White