Like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire is poised to become one of the top money makers of the season – it’s the keep the costs low, story strong, profits high strategy that works, especially since Danny Boyle didn’t set out to make this year’s Little Movie That Could. It just turned out that way. It’s one of those great surprises. Many that I’ve spoken to believe that Slumdog is the movie to beat this Oscar season, naming it the frontrunner to win Best Picture and Best Director. Here is what Indiewire says about the box office:
It all sounds very familiar. Fresh from hugely favorable screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival, a Fox Searchlight release rides a wave of word-of-mouth that leads to scores of accolades and even more box office. This is the story of 2004’s “Sideways,” 2007’s “Juno,” and potentially, this year’s “Slumdog Millionaire.” As Searchlight continues to slowly expand Danny Boyle’s Oscar hopeful, it becomes more and more clear that it might have 2008’s specialty powerhouse on its hands.
“Slumdog”’s $36,002 per-theater-average opening last weekend might have been good enough to lead all of the 2008 fall specialty releases thus far, but it still stood in the shadow of its distributor Fox Searchlight’s biggest hits. In 2004, Alexander Payne’s “Sideways” averaged $51,760 on four screens in its first weekend, while last year Jason Reitman’s “Juno” managed a unbelievable $59,124 on seven. Those films ended up with $71 million and $143 million cumulative grosses, and Searchlight must be looking to them now with aspiration.
In its favor is the fact that in this past weekend, “Slumdog”’s second round, the numbers started to narrow. The film expanded from 10 to 32 screens and grossed $948,606, a $29,644 average. That marks just a 16% drop in per-theater-average. “Sideways” and “Juno” both expanded similarly in their second weekends, jumping from 4 to 16 screens and 7 to 40 screens, respectively. Except they dropped much more significantly. “Sideways”’s averaged tumbled 52% while “Juno”’s fell 40%. Perhaps most interesting in “Slumdog”’s case is that the original 10 theatres in which it opened last week were up 16% on average.
The numbers confuse me but even I can tell that this is good news for Searchlight and Slumdog. In Contention’s Kris Tapley recently told me that it’s an odd year when Danny Boyle and David Fincher are in the Oscar game. What is the world coming to?
20 Responses for "Slumdog Poised to Be Season’s Success Story"
Slumdog is not very good.
Richard, you are our resident dark cloud, lol.
I really like Slumdog…A very good feel-good movie. However, somehow i dont believe that it is one of the top 5 movies of the year. The Dark Night, Milk, Benjamin Button, Australia, Revolutionary Road, Frost/Nixon, Doubt, Rachel Getting Married, The Reader, etc etc. It should be part of the list but not in top five (my opinion!!!)
I’m pro-Slumdog and agree this is the It film of the year, so far at least. It has all the elements of an Oscar darling: an inspirational story of come-from-behind victory, against-all-odds romance, suspense, good acting, strong direction, masterful crafting, emotional resonance, good guys/bad guys, the “cool” factor — I could go on. Most of all, to me, Slumdog has strong, relevant messages but doesn’t make a big deal out of it.
I saw this film Sunday afternoon in an upper-middle-class suburb, and the screening was sold out.
What does it mean to be the It-movie of the year if Paris Hilton is the IT-girl of the year, hmm….
Slumdog really should be listed on the sidebar for Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing and Score. It’s a solid contender there. I’ve heard buzz for Anthony Dod Mantle’s unique camerawork; A.R. Rahman is a world-renowned composer; and Simon Beaufoy was Oscar-nominated for The Full Monty’s screenplay. Kim Voynar at MCN published a rave article on Beaufoy the other day. Don’t know much about the editor, Chris Dickens.
Also, I think Dev Patel has a reasonable shot at picking up a supporting actor nom.
I think Slumdog may be too small. I liked the film very much but I just dont see it being nominated. I think the five will be Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Doubt, Milk and Reservation Road.
Violet
I did the same mistake a few times
Not Reservation Road (it was a mediocre Joaquin Phoenix movie last year) . REVOLUTIONARY Road 
)
I would be shocked if Slumdog won, mostly because it’s so cool. It doesn’t seem Oscar-y enough. I love it though. It inches ahead of TDK for me for my favorite of the year so far.
I like Slumdog, and I am ecstatic that Boyle is finally getting recognized, but the film is far from his best work. It didn’t push the limits in the same ways that Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and even Sunshine did. And its not as touching as Millions. It’s a good movie, but I wish Boyle was being recognized for something more risky and inspired.
Dev Patel IS NOT SUPPORTING. How is this even a debate?
I think Slumdog is awfully weak for a major contender, but I’d be shocked if it wasn’t nominated in a number of major as well as technical categories, including cinematography and editing (both well deserved).
That said, I don’t know that I see it winning the big show. One of its weaknesses as a film — rushed and otherwise shallow character development — results in what I consider a major handicap for its best picture chances: the feeling of “meh” or “how nice” one gets at the conclusion, and the overriding sense that there were no real stakes for Jamal in the game, provided Latika was watching at some point. (As anti-climactic a goal as I can imagine, given we’ve only really seen the adult Latika onscreen for 2 minutes prior to that.) The only reason more people haven’t yet commented on this strangely chilly ending — overcompensated for with increasingly banal lines about destiny, flashbacks to earlier moments in the film, and unearned plaintive mandolin — is that it is IMMEDIATELY followed by a high-energy dance sequence over the credits.
I don’t know: maybe I’m alone here, but that ending left me cold cold cold in a way no supposedly uplifting best picture candidate ever has.
qwiggles, you are alone. LOL Just kidding but seriously I really liked Slumdog Millionaire. I usually prefer my endings to be less upbeat but I really liked the pay off at the end. I disagree with you about not caring about the characters. Although we didn’t see adult Latika much I assumed that she hasn’t changed much since she was a child. I don’t know I just really enjoyed the film and I can’t explain properly why.
“Dev Patel IS NOT SUPPORTING. How is this even a debate?”
Natural – Patel is being campaigned in supporting, apparently because he shares the role of Jamal with two younger actors so there is no true lead. Or, if you’re cynical, it’s because the studio thinks that’s his best shot at a nomination.
I haven’t seen slum dog so I can’t criticize it but I hate this whole “oscar-formula” jargon. It’s almost as if, some movies get recognition for fitting a certain category….not because they are necessarily good. The oscars have always left a spot for the “indie-small-budget-but-breakout-star-mass-appeal” movies and films which were not quite good end up being sensationalized by critics just because they fit that category.
Juno definitely wasn’t that great. The humor was forced, one-note and the whole film was unrealistic yet it tried to take itself seriously…in a funny way. And Ellen page for best actress? why? because she looked moody and spoke with her throat in the film? have you seen her interviews? that’s how she acts and talks. How can she get a nom for being herself? what a stretch.
Don’t get me started on Little Miss Sunshine. Abigail Breslin’s nom was a ratings magnet of course ( together with the Hudson rags-to-riches saga). And Arkin’s oscar win, what the hell was that?
Slumdog soundtrack is just brilliant.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/11/24/slumdog-millionaire-soundtrack-details-released.aspx
Sureshot noms for Best Score and Best Song [“Jai Ho” by A R Rahman featuring Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah & Mahalaxmi Iyer]
I am really starting to think that Richard Crawford is a complete buffoon.
He comes to these threads continuously to rile and rave against all the films, properties and performers who get the highest ratings. He leaves a comment here like “SLUMDOG is not very good….” knowing full well that 90%or so of the critical establishment has praised it including the few critics he has in the past celebrated on these threads. I have had battles with him in the past, and some important people have told me “he’s a fool who just likes to stir up the pot to gain attention.”
So this is the Crawford game, as per his submissions at AW: Research what films are the most highly rated and then be sure to put in a remark attacking such films.
It’s a simple formula. But you are getting stale Richard. We’ve heard it too many times. To say that Richard purposely wants to come off as the “quintessential snob” is an understantement. Yet, his taste is not mature enough for him to be called a snob. That would be too kind.
For the record, in the world of sensible posters, SLUMDOG is one of the very best films of 2008, vying with WALL-E, DEAR ZACHARY, THE VISITOR, SNY, and EDGE OF HEAVEN for the top spot………
qwiggles:
To answer your question:
Be rest assured YES you stand alone, that ending was as exhiliarating as we’ve had in many a year for any film.
I would venture to suggest that Richard Crawford never saw SLUMDOG.
He waits to see what films people and critics REALLY like and then he puts in these short quips trying to rain on everybody’s parade.
He’s your quintessential misanthrope and he revels in that. He does love the attention, Sam.
Scenes of poverty and squalour may appear romantic to Westerners and to our snooty elite but for ordinary Indians they are nothing new. They are an everyday reality. However, one wonders what sort of mind can find such images aesthetically pleasing. Party-hopping socialites (for example, Shobhaa De after all her bombast of “enough is enough” after the Mumbai attack, went and watched a pirated copy!) who are distanced from such reality may find this film an “eye-opener” but for us it IS just poverty-porn. It IS just slum- voyeurism. The music/soundtrack and the technical quality is excellent but I think, overall, the film is unrealistic and over-rated because:
Two glaring omissions: To get invited to the show one has to answer several GK questions over phone or Internet. Even after making it to the show, a contestant can reach the hot-seat, only after qualifying through “fastest finger first”. All this is conveniently forgotten in the film.
1) The director seems to RELISH showing violence. Some of it (like the police-torture) is quite needless. And why was the boy arrested in the first place? On what charge? Was it realistic?
2) How can a boy growing up in slums speak such accented English? Even if one assumes that the language he actually uses to communicate with the game-show host and the police officer is Hindi (granting the director the creative license to use a language better suited for international audiences), there are 2 instances where it is stretched too far: (a) when the boy becomes a ‘guide’ for foreign tourists at the Taj Mahal & (b) when he becomes a substitute-operator at the call-centre.
3) When the boy uses his ‘lifeline’ during the game-show, his friend discovers that she has forgotten her mobile and has to run back for it. This is plain Bollywood masala! Did the director HAVE to make it so melodramatic?
4) How did the boy know who invented the revolver just by watching his brother use it?
5) How does his friend know about Benjamin Franklin (something which many Americans themselves don’t know)?
6) “Darshan Do Ghanshyam” is NOT written by Surdas. It is written by Gopal Singh Nepali for the movie Narsi Bhagat (1957). This song is also credited as traditional and originally written by 15th century poet Narsi Mehta, whose life that film is based on.
7) After winning the game-show, the boy sits on the railway platform and nobody recognizes him! Considering the popularity of the show, is that realistic?
9) And of course the greatest flaw in the storyline: programmes like ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ and ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ are NOT telecast live. As a result the entire structure of the film becomes unrealistic. For a film that boasts of being realistic such a flaw cannot be overlooked.
Due to all these flaws, “Slumdog Millionaire” is no better or worse than an average Bollywood masala film and the Academy will lose its credibility if it gives this film the Best Picture & Best Director awards.
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