The odds are definitely in favor of del Toro at the upcoming Academy Awards, as only seven of the past 70 winners since the DGA Awards started in 1948 have not gone on to capture the Best Director Oscar.
On Saturday, del Toro won one of the biggest honors in the film industry, an award whose winners traditionally go on to receive an Oscar.
According to Variety, del Toro, who won the top DGA feature film award, praised the industry for allowing a diverse group of directors to tell their stories.
Guillermo del Toro won the top feature film prize for The Shape of Water at the Directors Guild of America Awards Saturday night in Beverly Hills, California, strengthening his bid to win the Best Director Oscar next month. A fantasy romance about a unique bond formed between a mute woman (Sally Hawkins) and an amphibian man (Doug Jones) in the early 1960s, The Shape of Water has been a major force throughout awards season, picking up Best Picture honors from the Producers Guild of America Awards and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, as well as Best Director awards from the Golden Globes and the CCMAs.