Slumdog Millionaire

About Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Simon Beaufoy. The film is based on the bestselling novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup. Production began in Mumbai in November 2007. After showings at various festivals, the film will have a limited release on November 12, 2008 in the USA and will be released in the UK on the 23 January 2009.

The story of Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika (Freida Pinto), the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Each chapter of Jamal's increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show's seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out...

Slumdog Millionaire was scripted by Simon Beaufoy, who had written the script for The Full Monty (1997), which was one of director Danny Boyle's favorite British films. The script is based on the bestselling novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup. Though the script's byline about a Hindi kid winning the local version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? did not appeal to Boyle at first, he read the script out of respect for Beaufoy. The director was entranced by the script, particularly the implementation of the extraordinarily difficult Hindi version of the game show compared to the American and British versions. Boyle also called the script a "love story," since the streetkid who goes on the game show had lost his girlfriend in Mumbai and finds that the only way to reach her is to appear on the show, which she watches religiously. By August 2007, the companies Celador Films and Film4 greenlit Slumdog Millionaire, with Fox Searchlight Pictures and Pathé taking up the American and international rights respectively, with Danny Boyle directing and British actor Dev Patel cast into the lead role as the Indian streetkid. Boyle also entered talks with actor Shahrukh Khan for the film as the game show host, but Anil Kapoor took the role instead. The companies fully financed the production, which began on November 5, 2007 in Mumbai. Boyle worked with regular collaborators as well as an Indian crew in the country. The director filmed partly in Hindi and mostly in English, having expressed his love for Hinglish films as the influence. The film was co-directed by Loveleen Tandan who had earlier cast films like "Monsoon Wedding" and "Brick Lane."