Slumdog to propel India into global film market

Washington, Feb 21 (IANS) With Mumbai-set hit film "Slumdog Millionaire" favoured to win an Oscar Sunday, Indian Hollywood producer Ashok Amritraj believes the runaway success of this "gem of a movie" will help propel India into the global marketplace.

"'Slumdog' is a little gem of a movie, and proves that original stories, creativity and talent comes through even without stars and irrespective of locations," Amritraj, CEO of Hyde Park Entertainment, said in an e-mail interview to IANS.

But "I don't believe that on a global level the movie will change the Western countries' view of India," said the former Indian tennis player turned filmmaker.

Ashok is the youngest brother of the tennis duo of Vijay and Anand Amritraj.

"However being a part of such a successful film can only help propel India both as a location and as a film industry into the global marketplace."

Amritraj's latest production, "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" is set to be released Feb 27 by 20th Century Fox. His "Street Fighter 4" video game released this week too has had an extremely successful run grossing over $150 million in its first order.

Slumdog's success has already propelled its British Indian star Dev Patel into Hollywood. Noted Indian-American filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has cast the 18-year-old actor for his supernatural martial-arts movie "The Last Airbender", which begins filming in Greenland next month.

"Patel was already one of the guys I was interested in," Shyamalan told Variety. "Then I saw 'Slumdog Millionaire', and the kid just grew in my eyes."

The movie is the first in a planned trilogy that Shyamalan is writing, directing and producing based on Emmy-winning animated TV series "Avatar:The Last Airbender".

Patel replaces actor/musician Jesse McCartney, who decided to skip Shyamalan's martial-arts "boot camp" for the movie to do tour dates, according to Variety.

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