It's the most visually distinct film to win Best Picture in years and brought home more Academy Awards than any winner since. Yet Danny Boyle's romance-thriller-drama-comedy-Bollywood homage almost skipped cinemas entirely (in the US at least). Guaranteed a UK release (it was produced by British indie powerhouse Film4), the movie faced much more uncertain prospects overseas. Due to internal shifts in the studios, the film found itself in the hands of a distributor who really didn't want it, happy to pawn off the thematically difficult film on the home video audience. Enter Fox Searchlight, one of the juggernauts of studio-edorsed indie movies. Recognising potential (the film had begun to do well on the festival circuit) they struck a deal with Warner Bros. (who currently owned rights to the film) to distribute it. One very misleading advertising campaign later (in no reality is Slumdog a "feel-good film") and the film walked away with profit in the hundreds of millions and eight Oscars. Probably the most successful movie to almost go direct-to-DVD.
