Warner Bros. Infamously Gave Away A 2000s Best Picture Winner, But Their Original Plan For It Almost Killed The Movie Entirely

Slumdog Millionaire was one of the surprise hits of the 2000s. The Danny Boyle-directed film was originally acquired by Warner Independent Pictures in 2007. However, after Warner Independent Pictures shut down the following year and transferred ownership of all their projects to Warner Bros., the parent company did not have the same faith in the film as their subsidiary. They eventually sold half of the distribution of Slumdog Millionaire to Fox Searchlight Pictures.

After this deal, the end of August 2008 would see the movie make its Telluride Film Festival premiere. The movie had a good festival run, hitting the Toronto International Film Festival and London Film Festival as well, and receiving positive reviews along the way. Slumdog Millionaire also had a clean sweep during awards season across multiple ceremonies, and was eventually nominated for 10 Oscars and won 8 of them, becoming the most-decorated movie of its release year. One of these awards was the coveted Best Picture.

Why Warner Bros. Could Have Ruined The Film

The Distributor Did Not Have Faith In The Film

Warner Bros. may have lost out on Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire, but someone involved in the project has revealed how the studio’s plan would have ruined the movie. Released in 2008, Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a Mumbai teenager (Dev Patel) who becomes a contestant on the show Kaun Banega Crorepati, a version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. Apart from its fraught distribution history, the movie was far from a typical 2000s Best Picture winner in an era surrounded by wins from American-based stories like Crash, The Departed, and No Country for Old Men.

Slumdog Millionaire Key Facts
RT Critics Score	91%
RT Audience Score	90%
Budget	$15 million
Domestic Box Office	$141.3 million
Worldwide Box Office	$378.4 million
Academy Award Results	Best Picture (Won), Best Director (Won), Best Adapted Screenplay (Won), Best Cinematography (Won), Best Film Editing (Won), Best Original Score (Won), Best Original Song (Won for “Jai Ho,” Nominated for “O Saya”), Best Sound Mixing (Won), Best Sound Editing (Nominated)

Speaking on The Town with Matthew Belloni, Boyle’s agent Robert Newman provides details as to why Warner Bros. would have ended up ruining the movie. Belloni framed the conversation by remembering how “everybody loved” Slumdog Millionaire after its festival run, making it surprising that Warner Bros. would give up the movie. Newman said that Warner Bros. “wanted to go right to the Indian home video market.” Newman did not settle for this, believing that audiences would love the movie if given the chance. Check out the full quotes from Newman below:

Matt Belloni: The Slumdog [Millionaire] story is still one of the greatest stories in Oscar history. The fact that nobody wanted that movie, and Warner Bros. literally gave it away to Fox Searchlight, and I remember being at the Toronto Film Festival right after that sold, and no one could believe it, because everybody loved that movie. And it was one of those years where there was no Oscar race; it won literally everything. I’ve never understood, why did WB give up that movie?

Robert Newman: After they saw the movie, which they did not like, they wanted to go right to the Indian home video market, the Hindi home video market.

Belloni: No!

Newman: Not a business I was aware of.

Belloni: [LAUGHS]

Newman: And I had to beg them, I said, ‘Please, I really believe this is an audience film.’ And I said, ‘Just let us play the Toronto Film Festival. Let us play Telluride. It gets terrible reviews, so be it, but I really believe it’ll work for audiences.’ They said, ‘No, it’ll cost too much money.’ So finally, I had Telluride call up, I had Toronto call up, and I begged [WB] to let us take it to Searchlight. But they were at that point determined to release it on the Hindi home video market in the fourth quarter.

Belloni: Did you get some kind of a, ‘We apologize’, or ‘You were right’, or something from them? Maybe at the Governor’s Ball?

Newman: Well, let’s put it this way. They got to put in half the money for the P&A [Prints & Advertising] and all that other stuff with Searchlight, so they got to participate financially. So, I was happy about that. How they felt about it, in terms of not being the ones who get to sit at the winners’ table, I’ll leave to them.

Our Take On Slumdog Millionaire’s Distribution Story

Slumdog Millionaire Was A Huge Success Overall

With the gift of hindsight, selling Slumdog Millionaire to the Hindi home video market would have done the future Oscar winner a massive disservice. In addition to its critical success, the movie was also a box office smash hit, making over $378 million on just a $15 million. It was successful in the United States and abroad, proving that Newman was right when he felt in his heart that audiences were going to love the movie if given opportunities to watch it.