From Slumdog to Top Dog

Little Mr. Slumdog

But what if you made a great movie and nobody saw it? When Warner Bros. (which is owned by TIME's parent company, Time Warner) folded its "indie" arm last year, Slumdog was suddenly without a U.S. distributor, and producer Christian Colson was told the film would be shelved. The parent company could have just sat on it--as Colson explains the industry logic, "It's better to let a film die than to have someone else turn it into a big hit"--but Warner Bros. "did the right thing" and let Colson show it to other indies. "Fortunately and extraordinarily," says Boyle, "and like almost everything else that's happened in this film, some mysterious stars and constellations aligned, and Fox Searchlight picked it up."

In a tightening market for indie films, Fox Searchlight is that rare ministudio that's on a roll, with breakout hits like Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. Searchlight president Peter Rice saw the magic the movie had on its viewers: "It's like they've discovered such a unique experience, they immediately want to share it with other people." Late-summer screenings at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals got a rapturous response, and Searchlight quickly pegged it as a November release, with eyes on critics' awards and the Oscars. (Warner retains a share of revenues.) It all worked perfectly. (See the 100 best movies of all time.)

"Slumdog is one of those out-of-left-field, are-you-kiddin'-me? kinds of movies that surprises everyone," says an industry insider who has worked on Oscar campaigns and spoke on condition of anonymity. He thinks the movie's own history will help it win over Academy voters. "The thing about the Oscars is that backstories count. In Slumdog's case, it was this little film in Hindi that lost its distributor. You tell this story to a producer, who's used to films not getting made or appreciated, and they're going to say, 'Wow, that story's amazing. It's so great that this movie is getting appreciated.'"

Passage to India

Being a hit in North America doesn't guarantee the same reaction in India. Slumdog opened in 350 theaters Jan. 23 and did fairly well--the third largest non-Bollywood debut, after Spider-Man 3 and Casino Royale. But India is one of the few nations to prefer local product to Hollywood blockbusters, and so far it has proved a tougher sell to the mass public than to U.S. audiences.

For many Indian movie fans, who seek escape with sentimental tales of the beautiful and the wealthy, Slumdog's subject is both familiar and unappealing. "You can't live in Mumbai without seeing children begging at traffic lights and passing by slums on your way to work," says Shikha Goyal, a public relations executive who left halfway through the film. "But I don't want to be reminded of that on a Saturday evening." There's also a sense of injured national pride, especially for a lot of well-heeled metro dwellers, who say the film peddles "poverty porn" and "slum voyeurism."

The film generated controversy in India even before its release there. A Jan. 13 blog entry by Bachchan, in which he asked if the film would have generated such hype if it had been made by an Indian director, led to an avalanche of Bollywood stars and critics taking positions for and against him. On Jan. 22, some 40 slum dwellers protested outside the Mumbai home of Anil Kapoor, who plays the Millionaire host in the film. (The actual Indian show's original host was Bachchan, followed by Khan.) The protesters held banners reading I AM NOT A DOG--as in slumdog--and POVERTY FOR SALE. Two days earlier, a slum leader in Patna took the film's Indian cast and crew to court for offending slum dwellers with the allegedly pejorative title (as if they'd chosen it). He said he didn't expect any better of the Brits who made the film, because their ancestors had called Indians "dogs," but that the Indians should have known better.

Boyle says, "Slumdog is just a hybrid of the words underdog and slum. Some people found it insulting, when actually it's a triumph for a kid from that background and a vindication of his resilience."

This message of hope is something many among India's lower middle class seem to have taken to heart. "The film only shows what is real," says Rakesh Nair, a driver in New Delhi. "It's those who are making lots of money who are cribbing about the film showing the dark side of India. Those left behind are loving it because they can empathize with the film's hero."

Festivalgoers empathized in Telluride and Toronto. Critics, then art-house fans, then the mall rats, cheered it throughout North America. The title has entered pop culture, with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show referring to Rod Blagojevich, the mop-top governor of Illinois, as "Scumdog Million-hairs." Now Hollywood's élite has joined the chorus. And our industry savant doesn't believe the negative press from India will hurt Slumdog's Oscar chances. Slumdog, he says, "will win everything of substance."

So is the success of this little movie that could a matter of luck or brains or deceit? Maybe what Slumdog says about its hero applies to the film itself. Maybe it's destiny.

—Reported by William Lee Adams / London, Madhur Singh / New Delhi and S. James Snyder / New York

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