Slumdog Millionaire director to revisit Mumbai

In somewhat happier news than our last story regarding the franchise, Slumdog Millionaire director, Danny Boyle is reported to be gathering his team once again to take on a new project.

The 52-year old Brit has just bought the rights to another book set among the teaming humanity of India’s Mumbai, last seen as the backdrop for Slumdog’s Oscar gold.

The book, “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found,” is a non-fiction work, and Simon Beaufoy, screenwriter on Slumdog, has told the UK’s Daily Telegraph that plans for the elegant novel’s translation to film are now well in hand, “It’s a wonderful book and there are some great characters, but no stories.” he told reporters. “So the job will be to get the fictional out of a non-fiction story.”

Mr. Boyle has good taste; A well-crafted blend of travelogue and memoir, Suketu Mehta’s book made the Pulitzer shortlist in 2005, and gives the reader a glorious summary of the vibrant metropolis that has now become famous as India’s heart.

And Mr. Beaufoy – who found fame himself as the scribe behind 1997′s male-striptease smash, ‘The Full Monty’ – is sure that the city is up to her role. “”It’s such a vibrant, young city,” he says. “In London, everything is hidden away. But in Mumbai it’s all there in the open – all the emotion, all the characters.”

Speaking to reporters from his home on a Dutch barge, moored in London’s upmarket ‘Docklands,’ the 42-year old wordsmith says the best part of the project has only begun, “The whole Slumdog experience was just extraordinary. But things have finally settled down, and I can get down to what I actually do; Writing. I can’t wait.”

There’s no release date for the movie as yet, but you can be sure you’ll hear more of it soon.