A couple of years back, a low-budget movie was made about a group of impoverished orphans living on the streets of Mumbai, India. It was financed by Warner Independent Pictures which was later shuttered and the film went to Warner Brothers with the rest of the WIP movies. Warner execs didn't know what to make of this odd little film but they were convinced it had no commercial appeal. They scheduled it for a direct-to-DVD release anyhow to try to squeeze something out of it and then they sold the rights for U.S. Distribution to Fox Searchlight Pictures on the cheap.
Searchlight decided to give it a modest theatrical release despite many misgivings. It opened on ten screens in January 2009. It didn't take long for Searchlight to realize that they had gotten the deal of the century.
Slumdog Millionaire won an incredible eight Academy Awards including Best Picture. It went on to earn $300 million worldwide in it's theatrical release.
I imagine somebody at Warner got canned over that deal.
1 comment:
Whatever happened with the kids playing the lead roles? They were so good. And humble.
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