“Hollywood Night of Offbeat Choices”

I haven’t weighed in all that much on various movie awards because they often don’t reflect the quality of the movies released in any given year. But this year, when the major studios curtail several specialty divisions including Paramount Vantage, Warner Independent, and Picturehouse, what happened at the Golden Globe Awards was pretty amazing. Per the New York Times:

How to explain this year’s Golden Globes results? Instead of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, we had Mickey Rourke and the recently rehabbed Colin Farrell winning for “The Wrestler” and “In Bruges.” Not Nicole Kidman but Sally Hawkins, who wandered onto the carpet in awe and wondered how she ended up onstage accepting a best actress award for “Happy-Go-Lucky.”

And “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” an ambitious, carefully fashioned piece of studio Oscar bait, became a mere bystander to an overwhelming victory by “Slumdog Millionaire,” an orphan of a movie, partly in Hindi, that won best picture, best director, best screenplay and best soundtrack.

The success of Slumdog Millionaire is particularly important. We noted here back in August how the movie had lost its distribution deal with Warner Bros., then Fox Searchlight stepped in — that’s the lack of confidence Hwood suits had about the movie, despite winning the People’s Choice Award at TIFF. Assuming it does well at the Academy Awards, Slumdog, which has already done $38M worldwide, could easily hit $50M and even has an outside chance at reaching the $100M mark. With a reported $15M production budget, that is an eye-popping ROI. And if that movie can find an audience — set in India with a no-name cast — it serves as yet another reminder to Hwood that moviegoers still care about good stories well-crafted.

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