Fox Searchlight gets first look on Danny Boyle’s movies for three years

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One of Hollywood’s hottest directors is staying put at Fox Searchlight. Danny Boyle, who just won the best director Oscar for ‘Slumdog Millionnaire,’ has signed a three year-first look deal with the specialty division of Twentieth Century Fox, John Horn reports on the Big Picture blog.

‘Slumdog’ was a massive success for Searchlight, which acquired half the rights to the film for $2.5 million from Warner Independent and helped drive it to a $353 million worldwide gross and eight Academy Awards.

The deal continues Boyle’s long relationship with Searchlight. His last four films were all distributed by the studio. Keeping the director in-house was a top priority for recently promoted Searchlight co-presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley since their former boss, Peter Rice, went over to head programming at the Fox network.

Under the new agreement, Pathe Films, which helped finance ‘Slumdog,’ will co-finance his future movies.

For more details, check out The Big Picture.

-- Ben Fritz