Fox Searchlight is top film studio at Golden Globes

By Nichola Groom

BEVERLY HILLS (Reuters) - Independent film label Fox Searchlight Pictures racked up more awards than any other movie studio at the Golden Globes on Sunday thanks to big wins for "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Wrestler."

The six awards for the studio, which is a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, will be key to boosting Searchlight's movie ticket sales in the weeks leading up to Hollywood's biggest event, the Oscars, next month.

"Slumdog Millionaire," a rags-to-riches tale about a young Indian man who competes on a TV game show, has raked in nearly $38 million worldwide to date, mostly in the United States. The movie was the night's big winner with four awards.

Fox Searchlight's "The Wrestler," which has been released in just a handful of U.S. theaters so far, has brought in $2.8 million. The movie about a fallen wrestler earned best actor honors for Mickey Rourke in the starring role and a best original song award for rocker Bruce Springsteen.

Time Warner Inc unit Warner Bros received five awards, the night's second biggest number for a studio.

Warner also originally backed "Slumdog Millionaire" through its now defunct label Warner Independent Pictures, and it distributed "The Dark Knight," for which Heath Ledger won a posthumous best supporting actor award for his portrayal of The Joker from the Batman comics.

The night's third biggest stack of awards went to independent film studio The Weinstein Company with two Golden Globes for its movies "The Reader" and "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Holocaust drama "The Reader" has pulled in $6.5 million worldwide while Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" has racked up $80 million in global ticket sales.

Among TV networks, cable TV's HBO was a big winner with seven statuettes, primarily for its mini-series "John Adams," followed by NBC with three for "30 Rock" and AMC with one for "Mad Men."