Little Miss ‘Millionaire’
One of the favorite games of studios and entertainment journalists alike is looking under rocks to find the next big indie sensation. Studios want the break-out hit and journalists want to be the first to proclaim the next Juno or the next Little Miss Sunshine. This year, eyes are turning to Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (11/28), the comedy drama about an impoverished and illiterate young man from Mumbai who wins the top prize on a multi-million dollar game show only to be accused of cheating.
Over at THR’s Risky Biz Blog, Steven Zeitchik notes that Fox Searchlight (of both Juno and Little Miss Sunshine fame) recently picked up domestic rights and are planning an “elaborate campaign for the smart but feelgood dramedy” and that the film is making a “studio-backed, buzz-heavy debut in Toronto.”
In truth, the film was unveiled last night at Telluride from which a friend contacted Jeffrey Wells to say the film “is a huge crowd pleaser. The ending pays off big time. The audience went wild. It reminded me of the audience reacting to Juno here last year.”
Concludes Zeitchik, “Don’t be surprised if the new year rolls around and we’re talking about Oscar noms and significant box office for Slumdog.”
I would only add that this will be quickly followed by the inevitable backlash.
Filed under: Buzz
Tags: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire, Telluride
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I’m really looking forward to this one, and I wasn’t before the “buzz” popped up today.
I can’t wait for the ad/trailer saying, “From the director of Millions… Slumdog Millionaire.” Just because they both have the word “Million” in them. Yeah. I’ll find that amusing.
What’s funny is the advesarial relationship between so many “cinephiles” and these pre-packaged “indie success stories.” I still remember the backlash hitting Little Miss Sunshine with people on movie blogs saying it was as artistically shallow as a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. I swear, I remember that. Juno received widespread hate. Imagine if either one of those had won Best Picture, ala Crash. It’s a good thing for each film that they didn’t.
Between the two, I’ve seen Juno twice and I could see myself checking it out again one day. It wasn’t one of the best films of last year, but it wasn’t as risible as many started to make it out to be. I liked it more the second time, and that’s a good sign. Little Miss Sunshine, I’ve only seen once and I highly doubt I’ll ever revisit that one.
All of that said, I do find myself reading reactions from Sundance, Telluride and other festivals looking for “indie sensations,” as you say, Craig.
Juno was bought, made, and marketed to capitalize on the type of manufactured “word-of-mouth” success (ie, well-placed internet hype) that made Little Miss Sunshine such a hit (and true indies like Napolean Dynamite before it). Little Miss Sunshine, on the other hand, was an indie that became a well-marketed machine after the fact. I don’t think the filmmakers of LMS expected the movie to take off the way it did but the studio did. They saw an opportunity to reach a broader demo than the standard indie audience: the folks that use awards noms and Netflix recommendations as a means to determining their movie choices. Heck, even us, so far above the hype machine, use awards noms as a means to determining ticket purchases.
While I don’t doubt that there was little cynicism in the original screenplay for Juno, everything about the production had that distinct feel of being packaged to appeal to a specific group of people, much the way well-tread Oscar bait like Cold Mountain, Crash, or Babel does in November and December.
I think I would have liked Juno a bit more had I not been so painfully aware of the marketing behind the movie and the crushing internet hype of sites touting it as the best thing since Google.
I have a lot of respect for Dannie Boyle and I kinda hope this movie doesn’t get the hype machine treatment of a Juno or LMS. I’m really tired of that sort of focused mania for a film determined to have “broad appeal” and “indie cred.”
The key for me is that, regardless of the origins or intentions of the film itself, journalists, studios and audiences alike willingly play into this sort of lowest common denominator short-hand…easily marketed and easily digested. Slumdog appears to fit the mold of the indie crossover hit: a crowd-pleaser that enters the Oscar wheelhouse because of a whiff of indie cred.
There was nothing wrong with LMS and to a lesser extent Juno, but both were hyped beyond reason. this is the curse of the mini-majors. In order to justify their involvement, they have to make a box office splash. The result is overmarketing and Oscar campaigns and an upward cost spiral.
“The result is overmarketing and Oscar campaigns and an upward cost spiral.”
As irritable as the overmarketing of LMS and Juno were to us (I still can’t bring myself to watch Juno and I found LMS fairly average), I guess their marketplace strategists could argue the complete success of their approach based on box office.
Ugh…I’m suspicious already.
so we’re in the post ‘juno’ era ??? for the next whatever number of years ‘juno’ gonna be the reference film for potential breakouts ???
how about this for a future ‘feel good indie crossover’ film ??? ;)
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ifa16f485c81d0f2aaed0e2189d1a1ef7
…i don’t think fox has a little miss sunshine/juno up their sleeve this year ???
i think the only think they have coming out during ‘oscar bait’ season i’m interested in is ‘choke’
sartre i’ve seen juno. don’t do it… :)
i think this years feel good indie cred movie is gonna be ‘towelhead’ yes i want to see this/ hope it doesn’t suck (i don’t feel to good about the non fest version being 20 or wahtever shorter. i want it all..)
Juno and LMS are both perfectly okay movies, they just aren’t actually ‘indie’ movies. They’re what the studios used to make: low-budget dramas.
Buzz is so damn fickle. I could’ve sworn that I read an article from a couple of weeks ago saying that Warners was trying to unload this movie. Where was the ‘buzz’ then?
alynch, I believe Wells talked about that. The thing is, I think people read too much into studio decisions. The fact that someone at Warners didn’t like the film doesn’t mean it’s actually bad.
In my opinion anyway.
I’m glad you choose not to go with the headline, “Little Miss Slumdog” — glad because now I don’t have to find another title for my spec script.
It’s the story of a moose-hunting granny, with shades of Chinatown (she may or may not be the mother of her own granddaughter), and set in the shimmering oily vistas of the former Alaskan wilderness. It’s Juno Does Juneau.
Or, Little Miss Slumdog sounds like it could be the Prince-and-the-Pauper sequel to Beverly Hills Chihuahua. (Chi-WOW-uh)
I was going to make some kind of ripped-from-the-headlines Republican VP crack in regards to your post, Ryan, but I decided to steer clear.
Juno Does Juneau…ahahhahaha
you can always count on me for a bop link.
http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/tickermaster/listing.cfm?TMID=4482
Headlines, Joel? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean ;-) You must be trying to mix movies and politics, and that stuff confuses me.
nah, I try not to specifically stir up political turmoil on LiC, but I couldn’t resist alluding to what’s been happening.
{btw, Joel, I lost track of whatever topic that was where you gave me tips and basic background about upconverting to faux 1080, but your advice was really helpful. I’m gonna give it a try. Thanks!)
How did Danny Boyle’s Sunshine not get mentioned in this conversation?
I try not to mention Sunshine because i have to defend liking it.
No need to defend it to me. I thought it was just fine until the third act, but I know a lot of people hated it all the way through.
I’m more surprised that the title, since it was his last film, didn’t make itself into a pun here somewhere. If I were clever I could make one, but alas, I’m not.
Danny…
Oh yes you are…
I even liked the third act.
Ok, that you might have to defend…
By the time it flew off the rails, I was totally absorbed into the psychology of the thing. The movie got in my head and that huge tonal and genre shift worked like gangbusters. Weird, I know, but there it is.