We already know that Slumdog Millionaire will be Danny Boyle’s next feature film. Thank you Variety for letting us know again, but at least you have something new to tell us.
Dev Patel, one of the kids in the Channel 4 production Skins will be making his feature debut in the lead role of the illiterate Indian kid, who goes on their version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and actually wins the jackpot. Remarkably, it’s actually based on a real life story and despite many accusations of the guy cheating, no-one ever had any evidence and the truth is, he did actually win it.
Big, big, big jump from a CH4 production into a big feature film for Patel, so no pressure mate… really.
The Fully Monty scribe Simon Beaufoy has wrote the script which begins shooting in Mumbai on November 5th. The project will see Boyle reunite with cinematographer Anthony Mantle, who he worked with on Millions and 28 Days Later.
A risky move for a lead star here and this material sounds a bit light and fluffy for Boyle but the concept is an intriguing one, especially with the hook of the story actually being real. Boyle though has a great talent for screwing up really cool ideas for films and after how painful it was to see Sunshine disintegrate before my eyes, it’s going to take a lot to get me back in the theatre for this.
One Comment
Well this is certainly very different to his other movies (though I haven’t got round to seeing Millions just yet).
I liked Dev Patel in Skins, he was rather quirky and I can really see him in this role come to think of it.
Skins is on C4 at the moment in the UK for anyone who missed it first time around.