Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Slumdog Millionaire - A Winner??

Two months ago I wrote about how Fox Searchlight has been developing a recent history of showing up with popular and successful independent films that make money at the box office and score big with critics, audiences and the Academy Awards.

A couple months ago I thought that Fox Searchlight's best shot was with Mickey Rourke's rave performance in the film The Wrestler...

That is...until buzz continued to grow for...Slumdog Millionaire.Slumdog Millionaire was actually first picked up by Warner Independent, but Fox Searchlight bought a 50% stake in the distribution back in August.

Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of an illiterate boy from Mumbai who wins big on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati).

The film has been gaining buzz, and has been released in limited release today to rave reviews. The film is directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later), and the screenplay is written by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty, Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day).

The lead actor is bollywood teen star and Dev Patel (also in the BBC show Skin).

It's hard to tell how big of a role that Slumdog Millionaire will play at this years Academy Awards...but I would say, having not yet seen the film, that it has a chance in the following categories...
  • Best Picture
  • Best Director, Danny Boyle
  • Best adapted Screenplay, Simon Beaufoy (Based on the book Q&A by Vikas Swarup)
  • Best Editing, Chris Dickens
As for acting I don't really see any acting nods, maybe Freida Pinto, Supporting Actress (just because this category is up in the air). I've also excluded Dev Patel for Best Actor because the category seems far too crowded...but I could be wrong.

How do you think this film will stack up with the Academy?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I haven't even seen it yet, but I can see it easily getting best picture. I think it's the title...

Boyle's crazy, enrapturing editing might be to blame as well.