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One of the biggest surprises of the year has to be Danny Boyle's crowd-pleasing "Slumdog Millionaire." Ignore the confusing trailer and listen to the critics and audiences who have been buzzing about the film since it premiered at this year's Telluride Film Festival.

The story of a young man from the slums Mumbai, India, who startlingly gets to the final question on the Hindi version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," "Slumdog" has the same sort of universal charm that put films such as "Il Postino" and "Amélie" squarely in Oscar's spotlight. Yet, when Boyle was initially approached about the project, he was far from interested.

"They said it is a film about 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,' and I really, really don't want to make that film," Boyle recalls. "And then I started reading it and within 10 pages I was overwhelmed by it. It just vibrated in front of me: the film, the idea, the kid, the city of Mumbai. And when I got to the end, I thought, 'I'm in. I'm doing it.'"

The Brit regretted using a large crew on his previous overseas effort, "The Beach," and recruited a much smaller and mostly local group while shooting "Slumdog" on location in Mumbai. It was such a busy city and so uncontrollable that Boyle says he had to give himself over to it. Boyle notes, "It helps you get over the idea of: How can this guy from London or Europe make a film about local people without seeming a bit inaccurate?"

The picture also had a relatively small budget of approximately $16 million, which required a discipline and ambition that Boyle found much more creatively rewarding in the long run. The fact that it wasn't a major Hollywood production also allowed Boyle to make a big change to the script right before shooting began. The first third of the story had focused on the lead character and his brother when they were young kids, but they soon learned that the children from the slums they wanted to hire couldn't speak the screenplay's English dialogue.

"Because you haven't taken $100 million, you can ring up Warner Bros. and tell them, 'Listen, guys: The first third of the film is now going to be in Hindi with subtitles.' And they go insane, understandably. But you can just about get away with it," Boyle says. "But if you'd taken $100 million, you can't even make the phone call."

Bringing underprivileged children into the magical world of moviemaking can be a life-changing experience for those involved, and Boyle and his crew were well aware of the responsibility they had to look after the kids once they were gone. The production set up a structure in which, if the children stay in school up until they are 16 and through their exams, a substantial amount of money will be released to them. Boyle adds, "But the biggest difference will be the fact they have been educated because, in terms of employment in Mumbai, that puts them in a completely different bracket."

Boyle continues, "Their lives are their own, you can't look after them their whole lives, it's not really realistic. They just passed their yearly exams. And hopefully the film will give them some long-term benefits as well."

"Slumdog Millionaire" opens in limited release on Nov. 12.