Oscar winner hits Chinese theaters

APD NEWS

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The Academy Award for Best Picture winner "The Shape of Water" will open in Chinese theaters on Friday.

20th Century Fox held a premiere for Guillermo del Toro's fantasy drama film on Wednesday night in Beijing, but the film's creators and cast were not present. Several Chinese stars, including actor Tong Dawei, attended the ceremony.

Set in Baltimore in 1962, the film tells a story about a mute custodian who falls in love with a captured humanoid amphibian creature at a high-security government laboratory.

"The Shape of Water" received 13 nominations at the 90th Academy Awards and went on to win four on March 4 -- Best Picture, Best Director, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score. Before the Oscars, the film also won plenty of awards, including the Golden Lion after it premiered at the 74th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2017.

A Chinese poster of "The Shape of Water" is released for China promotion.

Among all the Oscar best picture winners, the film takes the shortest time to be

released in China, just 12 days after the award ceremony. In the 2000s and 2010s, besides “The Shape of Water," only other five Oscar winners for best picture made their way straight to China, only months after they received Academy Awards in the respective year.

But Oscar glory didn't add much to their box office results in China. "Gladiator," "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and "Slumdog Millionaire" had average performances in the Chinese market, while "The King's Speech" and "The Artist" fared poorly -- earning only 6.3 million yuan and 4.25 million yuan respectively, as the Academy's voting membership's selection of best picture winners appealed more to art-house films rather than a balance of art-house and commercial.

How "The Shape of Water" will perform in China remains to be seen, but Chinese audience prized Guillermo del Toro's previous works including his blockbuster "Pacific Rim", which grossed a total of US$114.3 million in the country, making China the largest market for the film. In September 2013, thanks to China, Forbes highlighted "Pacific Rim" as "the rare English-language film in history to cross the US$400 million mark while barely crossing US$100 million domestically (North America)".

20th Century Fox also has another Academy-winning film screening in China currently, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," which won Best Actress (Frances McDormand) and Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell) out of seven nominations at this year's Academy Awards. It has made more than 50 million yuan (US$7.91 million) since its release on March 2 in China.

(CHINA NEWS)