Chris Pizzello / AP Photo
Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle won the Best Director award from the Directors Guild of America, improving his chance of claiming the same prize at the Academy Awards on February 22, The Telegraph reports. It's an amazing feat for a film that almost didn't make it into theaters. Originally, Warner Independent was supposed to release the movie, but then Warner Brothers shut down the unit, leaving the film's fate in limbo. For a time, Slumdog was poised to go straight to DVD, but eventually Fox Searchlight picked it up. Backstage, Boyle gushed over the Coen brothers, winners last year for No Country for Old Men, who presented his prize. "To step into the shoes of people like the Coen brothers, I mean, it's phenomenal because I have, as I admitted in the earlier speach, I've stolen from them all my career."