Money rolls in for eight-times Oscar winner Slumdog

THE FILM Slumdog Millionaire may hit £170 million in world-wide ticket sales, nearly 20 times the amount it cost to make, it was predicted yesterday.

The British film's Oscar sweep seals its mould-breaking success with US audiences.

Foreign and subtitled films often struggle to make any inroads in middle America, where big movies can pull in half a billion dollars in ticket sales.

Slumdog opened in the US last November in just ten cinemas. But the film's rags-to-riches story in a country that has just elected its first black president has caught the public's imagination and it will now get its first full nationwide release in the world's most lucrative film market.

US ticket sales are already close to $100 million (£70m) and industry sources said that was likely to surge in the wake of the Oscars.

There was jubilation in both London and Mumbai yesterday over the success of a film that mixed British money, directing and screenwriting with Bollywood actors and child stars from the slums.

Slumdog won eight Oscars including best picture, best director for Danny Boyle, and best adapted screenplay for Simon Beaufoy. With Kate Winslet also receiving a the best actress award and Man On Wire, the British film documenting Phillippe Petit's daredevil high-wire walk between New York's Twin Towers in 1974, being named Best Documentary, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, hailed it "a great night for Britain".

Celebrations of a different style erupted in a Mumbai slum, where children broke into Bollywood dance numbers and crowds cheered as they rooted for two of the film's child actors.

Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, ten, and Rubiana Ali, nine, had been flown to Los Angeles for the ceremony.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated the Slumdog team, saying: "The winners have done India proud."

Now that Slumdog has swept the board with film awards in both London, at the Baftas, and Hollywood, its global success is set to swell. It cost about £7-8 million to make, or about $15 million at last year's exchange rates, and had made £110 million globally before the Oscars result.

The key to its success is winning over the American market, where sales are already bigger than the rest of the world combined.

It is now showing in more than 2,000 US screens, and this weekend it will be in 4,500.

Two years ago, the film's producers struggled to interest any American distributors, and last year there was talk of releasing it straight to DVD. It still cannot rival US sales of a Hollywood blockbuster like Dark Knight, which has netted nearly $500 million.

But through the awards season US audiences have grown by leaps and bounds, even more surprisingly in a country without the UK's strong South Asian minority.

"It's the message of hope in a recession, the power of love, universality and globalisation and the dreaming the impossible dream in the time of Obama," said one Hollywood observer. "They are all very connected with US audience right now."

"Actually it's a film that says there are more important things than money," screenwriter Simon Beaufoy told reporters backstage after the award. "That struck a chord."

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A night of triumph but Film4's cash problems don't bode well for the future

IT DOES not need an expert to point out that it was a great Oscars night for Britain, but will the success mean anything for the Scottish film industry?

Slumdog Millionaire was essentially an English production, made in India. Danny Boyle, who picked up the Oscar for best director, is a Mancunian, who lives in London, but he made his first two feature films – Shallow Grave and Trainspotting – in Scotland, back in the 1990s.

Subsequent films have done disappointing international business. But Porno, the Trainspotting sequel, might suddenly look a lot more attractive to international financiers now.

Meanwhile, it was a busy Sunday for Christian Colson. As Slumdog producer, he picked up the award for best picture. He probably fitted the appearance in around phone calls to Scotland. His next project, Centurion, an action film involving Ancient Romans battling Picts, began shooting in Badenoch and Strathspey at the weekend.

Before we get too carried away with gloating, it is worth bearing in mind that Film4, which initiated Slumdog Millionaire, is itself facing an uncertain future.

Channel 4's film arm kept British and Scottish cinema alive back in the dark days of the early 1980s and backed Boyle and Shallow Grave a decade later. But the broadcaster is facing a shortfall of more than £100 million, and could well be the subject of some sort of broadcasting amalgamation.

Slumdog's profits might go some way to redress the problems and keep it afloat, which is obviously good news for British film and hopefully Scottish film.

It is not just about money. Millions have been pumped into Scottish film via the lottery and Scottish Screen without an Oscar.

It is 14 years since the last genuinely home-grown Scottish Oscar: the short Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, directed by Peter Capaldi.

Nor it is about any grand design. Slumdog came out of left-field and it is probably ill-advised to try to make a film with the Oscars in mind.

Hollywood has repeatedly come a cropper when trying to do that.