Slumdog Millionaire: Marketing and Promotion

Slumdog Millionaire's marketing and promotion was handled by Warner Independent pictures who outbid Fox Searchlight, for the rights and Pathe distributed the film in Europe.. However, although Fox and Warner are two of the biggest studios in the world, it was their indie branched that were interested in the film. Slumdog Millionaire was considered an "indie" film for these reasons. Firstly, as films go, its budget was relatively small at only $15 Million (£9.5 Million). This immediately tells us that the film isn't the expensive, and glamorous blockbuster that most Hollywood films are. Secondly, the film itself isn't set in the western world we are used to seeing depicted in film. It is set in India, which already people might view as uninteresting since they may not identify with the characters or the situations they are in, this is because India is a very different place from America or the UK. Next, we have the language barrier, since this movie is set in India, it is bound to have the Indian language in the film. It is worth noting that director Danny Boyle actually lied about the ratio of Indian to English in the film, in order to procure a deal. This immediately would turn off fans of generic films as the language barrier would ruin the experience for them. Another key factor of this is the fact that the majority of the cast is Indian, they're are no western stars in the film, unless you count Dev Patel, who played the lead role of Jamal, he is British of Indian descent, but was not a big film star anywhere  Again for the majority of film goers, this would put them off seeing the film due to them not recognising anyone in the film, Anil Kapoor is the most recognised actor in the film, however is only famous in India, meaning that western audiences would not recognise him. As well as this Boyle's previous work were not box office hits either, granted he's had some cult classics under his belt such as Trainspotting, but no major box office hits. Before Slumdog, he was accustomed to making smaller releases, made for a UK audience, it could be argued that Boyle's lack of experience with bigger films was a factor in how the film was Marketed and promoted. Finally the company that funded the film was Film 4, a British film production company, The majority of Boyle's work has been funded by Film 4, since they are a smaller studio than the likes of Fox or Warner Bros. and thus are used to working with smaller directors such as Boyle.

Despite the success that Slumdog Millionaire achieved, it almost never saw a cinema release, due to the global recession of 2008, Warner Independent pictures was shut down, this could of had massive effects on the films success for these reasons. First, since the film would of been released on DVD, it would not of been viewed by as many critics or even regular audiences, due to this the film would not as received the attention and awards that it earned following the films cinematic release. Another factor in this is that what attention it did get would of regarded it as an Art House film, or even a foreign language film, as most of the marketing revolved around how mainstream the film is, which is arguably why the film received the attention it did. Thirdly the film would of never been viewed in the way that director Danny Boyle would of intended, it was made specifically for a cinematic release, meaning that a DVD version would of diminished the quality of the film potentially harming it's reception with audiences. As a result of the low sales, the box office return would of been much lower than it was. This could lead into uncertain futures for both the cast and crew, it could be argued that Dev Patel would of not got any other major film to act in. In addition to this this could of damaged Danny Boyle's chances of running the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics.

Eventually Fox Searchlight bought the rights to the film after they bought a 50% share of Warner Independent Pictures. meaning that the film could go on as intended. However it should be noted that the marketing of the film, most notably in the UK, gave a very different impression of the film than the film itself, it was portrayed as a conventional romantic drama film but was much more than that in both content and story. However other marketing campaigns tried to celebrate the "Indie" elements of the film.