Now I'm a massive fan of Danny Boyle. I've been a fan since Mark Renton and Sick Boy ran down Prince's Street in Edinburgh at the start of TRAINSPOTTING back in 1995. That movie made me want to go back and check Boyle's impressive debut SHALLOW GRAVE, which was released fairly quietly a year or two earlier. Well, following on from the lackluster success of MILLIONS and the massively successful 28 DAYS LATER, Boyle is back this year with SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, a film which, as it was announced today, will close the 2008 London Film Festival.The film is actually based on the novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup and set entirely in Mumbai, India, where the Boyle shot it. The movie features an all-Indian cast including SKINS star Dev Patel and Anil Kapoor.
The premise of the film is quite simple. It tells the story of an orphan who finds himself one question away from winning 20 million rupees on India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. Who cool. Indeed.
In other LFF news, it was recently announced that the big screen version of the play FROST/ NIXON, directed by Ron Howard and starring Frank Langella as former US president Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen as British journalist and broadcaster David Frost, will open this year's fest, which runs in the capital from October 15th until the 30th.
We'll keep you updated on news of more screenings at this year's festival as they become available.
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE will be released in 2009.