The Academy Awards this year portends great opportunities for the indenpendent producer.  Here is an independent, low budget production that wins 8 of the 10 Oscars it is nonimated for.

Slumdog Millionaire has its roots in Indian cinema.  The term  Bollywood is derived from Bombay, the original name of Mumbai, and Hollywood.  It refers to the Mumbai-based Hindi language film industry in India.  They actually produce more movies than does the real Hollywood.  The first third of the film is in the Hindi language.  Bollywood films were used for research in developing locations and mileau.  And local actors were used.

Warner Independent Pictures paid $5 million to acquire the distribution rights to the film.  However, in May 2008, Warner Independent Pictures was shut down with all of its projects being transferred to Warner Bros. Pictures, its parent studio. Warner Bros. doubted the commercial prospects of Slumdog Millionaire and suggested that it would go straight to DVD without a U.S. theatrical release.

Then, Fox Searchlight Pictures bought a 50% of Warner Bros.’s interest in the movie. A limited North American release on November 12, 2008 qualified the film for this year’s Oscars.  As of February 25, 2009, the film had grossed $175,115,223 worldwide.

Slumdog Millionaire has been referred to as an Indian Cindarella story.  In my mind, it is an independent film Cindarella story as well.  Warner Bros. didn’t think it was worthy of theatrical release.  What does that tell you about the major studios?  That they are afraid to take creative risks?

Creative risks are exactly what is needed in the film industry.  Look at Star Wars, an example of creative risks where Paramount thought it was just a kid’s movie.  Perhaps you can’t take risks with $100 million films.  But indepents can with their small budgets.

Go make a movie that will be refreshing and creative.  Those kind of films are in short supply these days.  And if it is really good, maybe we’ll see you at the Academy Awards.

– Rich Pulham

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Dailies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.