Gravity spinoff Aningaaq could attract double Oscar success for Cuaróns, Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón's arthouse sci-fi blockbuster, has been joined in orbit by a short film featuring the voice of Sandra Bullock.
Directed by Cuarón's son Jonas, the spinoff centres on a Greenlander who is contacted by Bullock's character from high above the Earth during Gravity. It features the voice of Bullock as lost-in-space medical engineer Dr Ryan Stone, and was shot on location in Greenland.
The Cuaróns are hoping the stark, abstract film, entitled Aningaaq, will make history as the first live action short to be nominated for the Oscars in the same year as its parent movie.
"It's this moment where the audience and the character get this hope that Ryan is finally going to be OK," said Jonas, 31, of the connection between his project and Gravity. "Then you realise that everything gets lost in translation."
Gravity has passed the $500m mark at the global box office and is being tipped as an awards-season frontrunner. The 3D spectacular opened in China on Tuesday, taking an impressive $9m in its first two days. The elder Cuarón told reporters that references to Chinese space stations and spacecraft in the screenplay had not been included for commercial reasons.
"When we were mapping out the story [in 2008] we had to base it upon elements in space at the time," he told the People's Daily, in comments translated by the Hollywood Reporter. "We had the Hubble space telescope, the international space stations, Tiangong and Shenzhou. That's what was in space; and this is way before China became sexy for the Hollywood box office."
Stone takes refuge in the Chinese space station Tiangong and also travels on the space ship Shenzhou during the events of Gravity. Big budget Hollywood productions routinely include Chinese elements to take advantage of burgeoning box office hauls in the world's most populous nation. It is anticipated that China will overtake the US as the most lucrative market for studios by 2020.
Directed by Cuarón's son Jonas, the spinoff centres on a Greenlander who is contacted by Bullock's character from high above the Earth during Gravity. It features the voice of Bullock as lost-in-space medical engineer Dr Ryan Stone, and was shot on location in Greenland.
The Cuaróns are hoping the stark, abstract film, entitled Aningaaq, will make history as the first live action short to be nominated for the Oscars in the same year as its parent movie.
"It's this moment where the audience and the character get this hope that Ryan is finally going to be OK," said Jonas, 31, of the connection between his project and Gravity. "Then you realise that everything gets lost in translation."
Gravity has passed the $500m mark at the global box office and is being tipped as an awards-season frontrunner. The 3D spectacular opened in China on Tuesday, taking an impressive $9m in its first two days. The elder Cuarón told reporters that references to Chinese space stations and spacecraft in the screenplay had not been included for commercial reasons.
"When we were mapping out the story [in 2008] we had to base it upon elements in space at the time," he told the People's Daily, in comments translated by the Hollywood Reporter. "We had the Hubble space telescope, the international space stations, Tiangong and Shenzhou. That's what was in space; and this is way before China became sexy for the Hollywood box office."
Stone takes refuge in the Chinese space station Tiangong and also travels on the space ship Shenzhou during the events of Gravity. Big budget Hollywood productions routinely include Chinese elements to take advantage of burgeoning box office hauls in the world's most populous nation. It is anticipated that China will overtake the US as the most lucrative market for studios by 2020.
