Slumdog Millionaire: The Musical?

Just days after Slumdog Millionaire’s big win at the Oscars, producer Christian Colson has announced that they are setting up for a stage version of the show, with covers of A.R. Rahman’s award-winning songs included.  Although the deals aren’t settled yet, negotiations are already beginning to make the musical a reality.  Producers say that this is all in the interest of the children from the film, and that the money will be used to raise more funds for them.  That sounds like a sneaky alibi to me, but I hope that they do follow through on their word.

The filmmakers have already set up trust funds for all the young actors in the film (which is to cover their education – some of them had never been to school – and basic living expenses).  Also, the children who played young Salim and Latika in the film, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail (10) and Rubina Qureshi (9) were moved to new houses by the Indian government.  The children’s families were living in the very poor slums of Mumbai, which were shown in the film.  “These two children have brought laurels to the country, and we have been told that they live in slums, which cannot even be classified as housing,” said Gautam Chatterjee, head of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority.

However, this comes after many protests throughout India and other countries after the film’s viewers discovered that the children continued to live in poverty while the movie was making hundreds of millions of dollars around the world.  Producers and director Danny Boyle argued that the children were paid above average local Indian salaries, but how much does that really add up to?

With all the success of the film, and all the money it has made (over $100 million just in North America), I hope that these children are looked after as well as people are claiming.  As far as the musical, we will see how well that goes over.  Turning films into theatrical productions doesn’t have the best track record, but a Bollywood musical on stage does sound like an interesting idea.  In any case, I’m sure it will do better than the new Spiderman musical, “Turn Off the Dark” (no, unfortunately I’m not kidding).