Across America, Starting with the Boxing Champion

 Chapter 544 Autumn

DecisionsasIgo,toanywhereIflow

Just leave, in the wave of time

SometimesIbelieve, sometimesI'mrational

Sometimes I believe that being calm is the real thing

Icanflyhigh,Icangolow

I can fly high or I can hit rock bottom

TodayIgotabillion.Tomorrow,Idon'tknow

Today I am worth billions, but tomorrow my fate is unknown

…

In early September, Link released a new single "Reality" on the Spotify platform. Without any promotion, it received 3.35 million global plays on the first day of release and 52.21 million plays in the first week.

Among them, the number of users in the United States who paid to download the high-quality sound version reached 1.31 million times, successfully reaching the first place on the "Billboard" singles chart.

It also ranks first on the music charts in 32 countries and regions including Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia, Japan, and South Korea.

After fans listened to this song, they left messages on his Twitter and Facebook saying that the song was too few and not satisfying, and they hoped to have more songs.

Among the fans who left messages are hundreds of well-known actors and singers, including Lady Gaga, Adele, Britney Spears, Madonna, Lana Del Rey, etc., all of whom claim to be his fans, like his songs, and Calling on fans to pay more to listen to this song, and encourage Link to write more new songs, otherwise he is too lazy.

As a result, the number of plays of this song surged to 156 million times in the second week, and one-thirtieth of them were paid members.

Link posted on Twitter that the next song is pure music, a symphony, and is in production, and strives to release pure music and MV versions before Christmas.

Fans are very much looking forward to it.

After "Reality" topped the singles chart for two consecutive weeks, Link called Taylor and lamented that there was no one in the music world who could beat him, and winning the singles chart title was easier than eating spaghetti.

Taylor scolded him angrily and told him not to be too proud and to write a few songs to defeat him next time.

Link smiled and asked her not to forget her original agreement to go on a date with a champion single.

Taylor called him a pervert.

Out of fun, Link created a new account on the Spotify platform at the beginning of the year. He used a new singing method to release some songs, initially imitating his own songs, and gained tens of thousands of fans on Spotify.

Starting in August, he began to release some of his own songs that were not included in the album. There are 22 songs.

The currently most played song has more than 1.2 million views, which is more played than the hit songs of many third-tier singers.

There were also messages from talent scouts from the record company, hoping to sign him and help him release an album.

Some fans also say that his voice is very similar to Link's, and suggest that he participate in "The Voice" or an imitation show. Nowadays, many singers have become popular by imitating Link's singing, and he can do the same.

Link was secretly pleased with himself and left a message saying that he just wanted to sing quietly and didn't want to be famous yet.

In addition to singing and recording songs, during his days off, he also filmed some boxing instruction videos and posted them on Netflix and YouTube.

The teaching location is at the West Boxing Gym, and the teaching targets are the apprentices in the boxing gym. There are a total of 12 classes, each class is 45 minutes.

The video of the first lesson was played 12.9 million times in the first week, making it the fastest boxing instructional video to be played more than 10 million times.

His purpose in shooting these things is to promote the sport of boxing, and now that he is famous enough, promoting it is easier than before.

"Link, you are so awesome. Just post a video and you can get tens of millions of views."

In the diving shop, Fat James said while watching the video on his mobile phone.

"This is not just a random video, but a carefully designed, high-quality video."

Link said as he leaned back on the recliner.

The instructional video has a special script design before shooting, with several coaches on hand to guide, as well as a professional photography team, editors, set designers, prop masters, etc.

Twelve instructional videos cost more than $800,000.

It's just that he didn't set it up to pay to watch because he was not short of money.

"Link, you are now a world star and a billionaire. Farke, I never dreamed that I would have the opportunity to talk to a billionaire in this life. Well, what I want to ask is, how does it feel? Change. The feeling of becoming a big star and a millionaire.”

James asked, blinking his little eyes.

"This is nonsense. Of course it will feel good to be a millionaire. Does it feel bad to have money?"

Daniel laughed.

"Not necessarily. The magazine said that rich people will also have the troubles of rich people. For example, after getting rich, they will become empty, bored, greedy and corrupt. Link, do you feel this way?"

James asked.

"No, my current worries are how to educate my children well and how to live longer. I have no other worries for the time being."

"See, I said Link has troubles too."

James smiled.

Daniel shook his head, not arguing with him.

Link lay under the awning, looking out the window at the deep blue sea, the blue sky, the white sand beach, a few white seagulls flying over the tall palm trees, and the faint smell of seawater floating in the air, which felt pretty good.

While the three were chatting, several tourists came over to rent diving equipment. After seeing Link, they shouted excitedly, hoping to get his autograph.

Link didn't refuse and even took a few photos with everyone.

Hearing that several tourists wanted to go diving in the sea, he also played a guest role as a diving instructor and took two professional divers to swim around the seabed.

Afterward, the Miami Herald reported the incident, which caused many fans to come to the Baker store to check in. Unfortunately, Link was no longer there.

Link and Iwaka stayed in Miami for more than a month with their three children and returned to Los Angeles in early October.

In the fall period of September and October, Lionsgate Pictures has four films for public release, including "Spring Breakers", "Dallas Buyers Club", "The Insidious" and "Insidious 2". "Spring Breakers" is directed and written by Harmony Korine, starring James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, etc. It is a crime-themed movie.

Produced by Annapurna Pictures and distributed by Lionsgate.

The film performed well at the Venice Film Festival in August and the Toronto Film Festival in early September, and was shortlisted for multiple awards.

The production cost was 5 million U.S. dollars. Through screenings and public screenings, it earned a box office of 14.12 million U.S. dollars in North America, and the current overseas box office has reached 12.08 million U.S. dollars.

It's a blockbuster movie.

Annapurna Pictures and Lionsgate will receive tens of millions in royalties.

The second "Dallas Buyers Club" is directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and stars Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, Rami Malek and others.

The movie tells the story of Ron Woodroof, a homophobic Texas electrician who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 in Dallas, USA. With the help of his friends, he established an underground organization called the "Dallas Buyers Club" to fight for AIDS. The story of AIDS patients being provided with more cheap medicines and 'unconventional treatments' and fighting the disease and the US Food and Drug Administration.

Similar to China's "I'm Not the God of Medicine".

The production cost of the film was US$5.5 million.

The movie started to be screened at the end of September. In the first week, 9 theaters took in a box office of 354,000, which is an average-to-upper level.

However, the reputation is very good, with a comprehensive media review of 92 points, and 36 media gave a score of 90 or above. It is also the movie with the best reputation among the movies produced by Lionsgate this year.

The Rotten Tomatoes score is 95%, making it the highest-rated movie released this year.

Especially the performance of the leading actor Matthew McConaughey, many film critics gave it five-star praise.

He is also considered one of the most promising actors to win the Best Actor Oscar next year.

"Lionsgate is so powerful this year, even more powerful than last year. According to this situation, next year's Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress will be monopolized by Lionsgate films."

Bob Weinstein said, flipping through the newspaper.

Harvey on the opposite side was sullen and silent. He was busy making new movies during this period and rarely paid attention to the news in the industry. But when he took a break and read the newspaper again, there was still a lot of news about Link in the newspaper, and it was all good news. .

In the past, there were media reports on Link's scandals and criticized him as a scumbag, but now such news is almost impossible to see in newspapers.

Link seemed to have become a flawless public figure.

Harvey is furious about this situation. Before last year, he and Link were equals in Hollywood, and now Link has grown into someone that even he needs to look up to.

Harvey took a deep breath: "Don't worry, Lionsgate Pictures has gone too far and seriously affected the interests of the Sixth Group. They will never watch Lionsgate devour the box office and ignore it. When the Sixth Group takes action, Lionsgate will Door Pictures will definitely suffer a big loss.”

"Will the six major film studios take action? Paramount Pictures has signed a cooperation agreement with Lionsgate, and Link is a shareholder of News Corporation, the parent company of Fox Films. Warner, Disney, Universal and Sony also have to deal with Lionsgate. It’s not that easy.”

Bob said with a frown.

Harvey clenched his fists, "Needless to say, this is the capital market. If the shareholders behind the six major film studios want to make money, they will never watch Link and Lionsgate continue to be arrogant. They will definitely take action. Yes, it will definitely be either this year or next year. I know what they are doing.”

"I hope you are right. If Lionsgate's movies continue to sell well, it will not be easy for our company."

Originally, the North American film industry was composed of six major film studios + countless small production companies. The six major studios are equivalent to six big sharks, taking up almost 60% of the box office share every year. The remaining small film companies can also eat some small fish. shrimp'.

The Weinstein Films is a leader in independent production, earning $5.6 billion in box office annually.

However, since the rise of Lionsgate, the "New Seven" have taken up almost 70% of the movie box office. Weinstein Pictures, Relativity, Legendary Pictures, New Regent Pictures, etc. have been squeezed, and their box office performance has been cut in half.

Not only small film companies, the box office of the six major film studios has also been greatly affected.

Research from Disney and Warner Pictures believes that during the summer season, if it were not for Lionsgate's "Now You See Me," "Identity Thief," "Bad Girls," "The Lone Ranger," "The Hangover" and "Return to Earth" Movies such as "Jack the Giant Slayer" and "The Holy Grail: City of Bones" will do better at the box office.

Lionsgate's movies can be said to have risen to the top by stepping on the corpses of their peers.

Based on his understanding of this industry, Bob was sure that the six major film companies would not sit idly by, but he was not sure when the six major film companies would take action against Link, nor did he know how many would be willing to take action.

Just wish it was faster.

Affected by Lionsgate movies, the box office performance of Weinstein Pictures' movies this year has been a mess. Except for "Django Unchained", which was released at the end of last year and has a North American box office of over 100 million, the box office results of other movies have not exceeded 60 million.

The company still has nearly 200 million in loans, with annual interest of tens of millions. If it continues, the company will probably go bankrupt in two years.

The thought of the company going bankrupt and being unable to make any money made Bob miserable.

"Don't worry, Lionsgate won't be complacent for too long, definitely not."

Harvey repeated.

—

Bob and Harvey guessed right. Their peers would indeed not ignore the rise of Lionsgate Pictures. This was not in line with the behavior of the group of capitalists on Wall Street.

Therefore, when "Dallas Buyers Club" was released, there were a lot of articles criticizing Lionsgate Pictures in the media.

It is claimed that Lionsgate was originally a leader in independent film production. After becoming the "New Seven", it gradually broke away from the independent film company line and produced many low-quality films, such as "Dragon Girl" and "Identity Thief" "Black Crazy Woman" series, etc.

Famous film critic David Bordwell said that there are two types of Lionsgate movies: one is movies that cater to the audience and are of poor quality, and the other is movies that cater to the Oscar judges and are specially made for the judges to watch. Award winning.

Although both films are good, they lack the characteristics of independent films and are gradually falling out of the category of independent films.

Finally, David Bordwell summed up his comments with one sentence, Lionsgate Pictures is changing from 'Dragon Slayer' to 'Evil Dragon'.

(End of chapter)