Danny Boyle, who snapped up a Best Director Oscar for last year's Slumdog Millionaire, has signed on with Fox Searchlight and Pathé Pictures for three more movies. The two companies were also behind Slumdog and its overwhelming success and have also had to deal with the ensuing fallout over what has (or in some cases, hasn't) happened to its young stars. (You can read some previous Cinematical posts on the Slumdog situation here, here, and here.)

According to the Los Angeles Times, "the director already has identified a possible initial production under the first-look deal, a drama about Aron Ralston, the American mountain climber who amputated part of his arm when it was pinned in a 2003 back-country hiking accident." However, Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy told the Telegraph something a little different. The UK paper reports that Beaufoy is adapting Suketu Mehta's book Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found.

"It was only decided a couple of weeks ago, but I will be writing the script for Danny... Maximum City is a non-fiction work, so it will be a huge challenge to find the story in it. It is a wonderful book and I used it in my initial research for Slumdog. There are some great characters in the book, but no stories, so my job will be to get the fictional out of a non-fictional story."

So, which will it be for the director? And since the controversy over the fates of Slumdog's two youngest stars has never been fully addressed by the studios or Boyle to the satisfaction of movie-goers, would it be all that wise for Boyle to return to Mumbai for the setting of his next movie?

Maybe it's all the talk of Swine Flu flooding the airwaves that has me in a pandemic frame of mind, but when Erik asked us to think about some of our favorite summer movie trailers, my mind wandered from the obvious blockbusters and instead, I came up with Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. Now, I've always been a staunch defender of 28 Days against what seemed to be a chorus of naysayers. Yes, I know; the theatrical ending is too upbeat (not for me, but I've got a pretty bleak outlook sometimes), it's not a proper zombie film, Cillian Murphy's 'Rambo' turn comes from left field, and the list goes on. But believe me when I tell you that there is nothing you can come up that I haven't already heard about why this film isn't all it's cracked up to be. So even though better men have tried (and failed) to convince me that this isn't some of the best work that Boyle has done, at least we can agree that it's a heck of a lot better than A Life Less Ordinary.

The international trailer for the horror had all of the trademarks of Boyle's style; great use of music, striking visuals, and it was creepy as hell. Boyle and Alex Garland's story of an infection running amok in England might not have been your typical summer release; it was shot on digital video, it had limited F/X, and the most recognizable face in the trailer was Christopher Eccleston. But, just watching this trailer again after all these years reminds me that it isn't always the splashy Hollywood productions that can turn out to be your summer's most memorable film.

(Trailer contains language that is NSFW.)

England's irreverent newspaper The Sun is notorious for printing stories that have not been 100% fact-checked and that may well be entirely false. (The Sun was like the blogosphere before the blogosphere existed.) Nonetheless, they get it right now and then, and they ran a particularly tantalizing rumor today: Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle has been asked to make the next James Bond movie.

Remember, this is shaky. The best The Sun can do is cite an anonymous source -- and all this alleged source says is that Boyle has been offered the film, not that he's accepted, or is even seriously considering it. It seems reasonable that the offer would be made, though. Obviously he's in high demand after winning the Oscar last week, and at various times all sorts of directors, from Tarantino to Spielberg, have been rumored to be interested in making a Bond film. Furthermore, Boyle is British, which used to be a prerequisite for a Bond director but has not been enforced lately.

The question is, would he be a good fit? One of the things I like about Boyle is that he's proven adept at an astonishing variety of genres, from horror to whimsy to sci-fi to whatever Slumdog was. I have no doubt he could make a full-bore espionage caper if he wanted to, and he could probably dig the franchise out of the Jason Bourne-copying rut it got stuck in with Quantum of Solace.

As further proof that it's Slumdog Millionaire's world and we're all just living in it, Danny Boyle won the Directors Guild of America prize Saturday night. Slumdog, nominated for 10 Oscars, was already named best picture by the Producers Guild of America, and it could still win a Writers Guild award, too. Oh, and then there are the Oscars, where it's the front runner to win Best Picture.

All of the guilds are fairly good predictors of the Oscars (the guilds' memberships overlap quite a bit with the Academy voters), but none more so than the DGA. In the guild's 61 years of prize-giving, all but six recipients have gone on to win their respective Oscars. So if I were a betting man, I'd put money on Boyle's name being announced on Oscar night.

But with Slumdog now having won the PGA award and the DGA award, surely you are asking yourself: How often has the same film won both awards? And does that mean it's bound to win the Oscar for Best Picture, too?

The short answer is yes. In the 19 years that the PGA has given out awards, it has matched the DGA award 13 times. And of those 13 double-winners, 10 have gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. (The three exceptions were Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, and Brokeback Mountain.) Ergo, if I'm a betting man, I'm looking at Slumdog.

In other DGA award news, Ari Folman won the documentary prize for Waltz with Bashir, which is nominated for an Oscar, too ... but in the foreign-language category, not documentary. So you're on your own for predicting that one.

Hopefully, here's a couple of welcome tidbits for our geekier readers to enjoy (however that label goes defined).

Bloody Disgusting pal David Harley pointed out an Amazon link to Canada's legit Region 1 release of Spanish spooker [REC] in two weeks, on January 27th. This disc will play in American DVD players significantly better than Sony's non-existent release will (besides, if you and they both wait for Quarantine, what's the use of this anyhow?), and in American dollars, it still comes out to about twenty bucks.

Also, after being tied up in legal shenanigans for over a year, John Murphy's haunting score to Danny Boyle's Sunshine is now available on iTunes and bound to play significantly better than that makeshift bootleg of the album that had been making the rounds (thus, I won't bother linking to that here).

Thirdly... well, actually, that's all I've got for now. So, um, yeah. How've you been? Enjoying this January weather? Expected worse myself. Alright, gotta run. Say hi to your mother for me.

Cinematical has received this very cool exclusive video featuring Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle and The Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky interviewing one another about their films, their process and a whole lot more. There are seven parts to this video -- two of which have popped up over at Slashfilm and First Showing -- and we have what I think is the best part: Part 7: Writing and Developing Projects (or as I like to call it, Part 7: The Final Awesome). Here, both Aronofsky and Boyle chat about how they develop projects. Boyle talks some about finding the right script, while Aronofsky tells us what it was like to work with another writer on The Wrestler -- one who used to edit The Onion. I won't spoil anymore, because this is one of those video interviews that don't come around too often -- it's best just to watch.

Both Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler (which are two truly excellent films, by the way) are currently in theaters, with the latter in limited release and expanding soon.

After a couple of weeks off (I had a bad case of Twilight fever), Indie Winners returns with a look at the best-performing independent films at the box office this weekend. As Indie Spotlighter Eric D. Snider noted before the long holiday weekend began, precious few new releases have entered the marketplace recently, so let's focus on two that distinguished themselves financially.

1. Milk (Focus Features)
2. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight)

Avoiding the fall festival circuit, and even drawing some criticism for not opening in time to possibly influence California's vote on Proposition 8, Gus Van Sant's Milk finally debuted to very strong numbers, earning $38,361 per screen (36) in 19 cities, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Milk opened last Wednesday and has been riding a wave of critical acclaim (93% positive, per Rotten Tomatoes, including our own James Rocchi). It will expand its theater count over the next couple of weeks.

In contrast, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire followed the fall festival circuit, generated glowing early word, and continues to perform well in (slightly) expanded release in its third week, scoring a per-screen average of $27,898 at 49 locations. Slumdog Millionaire also has received extremely positive reviews (92% at Rotten Tomatoes) and is likewise inspiring good word of mouth.

The old, if not profound, lesson? Specialty audiences have been responding to intelligent films that resonate emotionally, ones that sound different from the usual art house fare. Stars like Sean Penn and Josh Brolin may snare some viewers, but I'd bet it's the rousing treatment of important (and pertinent) subjects that drives Milk to a solid success as it expands. Lacking recognizable stars, Slumdog Millionaire definitely is building momentum because of its underdog tale and looks primed to be a crossover success.

So we've already torn the Motion Picture Association of America asunder for not displaying enough discipline with select film ratings, but what about the times that the MPAA maybe overdid it a bit with their judgment calls?

Earlier this week, I watched Danny Boyle's Millions for the first time in a good while, and I'd noticed that it was only rated PG for "thematic elements, language, some peril and mild sensuality" after an appeal to the ratings board. It's a fitting rating for a film worthy of an audience of all ages, but it made me wonder what the similarly whimsical Son of Rambow did to merit a PG-13 for "some violence and reckless behavior". I suppose the argument could be made that the behavior in Rambow lends itself more to imitation, but I know that my theoretical children (they have their mother's eyes) wouldn't be watching one and not the other.

Later that day, I saw Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, which gets an R for "some language". Now, I know that the MPAA tends to let adult-skewing PG-13 fare get away with an extra f-bomb or two (ex: About a Boy or the particular exception that is Gunner Palace), but by my count, F/N has a single -- albeit loud -- usage of Samuel L. Jackson's favorite expletive, and then nothing else that wouldn't earn an R. Isn't this just Once all over again? Are our nation's teens really going to stumble into this film and walk out worse off for it? (Robert Altman admitted on his Gosford Park commentary track that he intentionally swung an R for similar reasons.)

First, the obligatory Slumdog Millionaire endorsement. I saw it in Telluride, for which I am now grateful, but at the time I cursed the fates. Why? Because I couldn't buy another ticket and go see it again then and there. It opens tomorrow, November 12th, in a bunch of cities, and will trickle on out from there. It's rousing, and wonderful, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll love it.

The feel-frickin'-awesome movie of the year was directed by Danny Boyle, whose Millions hinted at his capacity for big-hearted fairy tales, but who is known for darker material. His biggest hit until a couple of weeks from now is the 2003 zombie horror flick 28 Days Later. He gave up the reins of the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, to talented Spaniard Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (whose Intacto was unjustly ignored six years previous), who wound up upstaging him with what was -- to my mind -- a vastly superior film.

The latest had been that up-and-coming horror director Paul Andrew Williams would be stepping behind the camera for the upcoming 28 Months Later. But now Boyle himself has thrown a wrench into that plan. Though he refused to discuss his idea for the third film, he told a table full of journalists that he'd like to return and direct it himself. "I'd certainly like to... I feel the idea is quite a strong idea, and it could well involve directing it. Yeah, absolutely."

We'll see what happens after Slumdog earns Boyle his first Oscar nods. I actually have faith that he won't abandon genre films -- he's so dang good at them (though I think his best showcase in that respect is actually Sunshine). I still prefer Fresnadillo's take on the 28 franchise, but on the other hand Danny Boyle is my new hero. Mixed feelings.