'The Mermaid' by Stephen Chow to get TV adaptation

A promotional photo from the film "The Mermaid." [Photo: 58921.com]

"The Mermaid," China's highest-grossing film, is about to be adapted into a TV series.

According to China Daily, online streaming provider iQiyi has paid a whopping 420 million yuan, or nearly 62 million US dollars, for the rights to remake the blockbuster directed by Stephen Chow. The move has been discovered after production company Shanghai New Culture Media Group revealed in a regulatory filing that it had sold the exclusive online streaming rights to Beijing-based iQiyi.

The blockbuster, written, produced and directed by Stephen Chow, grossed 3.39 billion yuan at the box office when it was released last year. In addition to being China's highest-grossing movie, "The Mermaid" broke numerous box office records upon its release, including the biggest opening day sales and the biggest single day sales in its opening week. The movie, starring Deng Chao, tells the story of a businessman who falls in love with a mermaid that has been sent to assassinate him.

Meanwhile, another filing shows that iQiyi has purchased the online streaming rights to adapt another of Chow's movies into a series, this time "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back," which was released during Spring Festival this year.

The deals demonstrate a growing impact streaming video on demand has on the Chinese market. Estimates by JPMorgan project that the country's online subscribers for such services will reach 144 million this year, accounting for more than a quarter of all the digital video audience.