Conquer America, Start with a Boxing Champion

In its third week of release, "The Expendables 2" grossed US$124 million at the North American box office, a relatively large box office decline, and its overseas box office total reached US$235 million.

From this perspective, veteran action movies still have strong box office appeal overseas.

Because "The Expendables 2" performed well at the box office, Lionsgate Pictures, Millennium Pictures, and Wanda Pictures began preparations for "The Expendables 3."

It is planned to be an action movie starring Link, Scarlett Johansson, and Jason Statham as the protagonists, with Stallone, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, and others as supporting actors.

Considering that Link will be filming "Captain America 2" this year, "The Expendables 2" will be filmed in the second half of the year or next year.

The project of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" began in October last year and officially started shooting on April 1 this year. The movie continues the plot of "Captain America 1" and "The Avengers".

It tells the story of Captain America Steve Rogers being wanted and hunted by former Director Alexander Pierce for allegedly killing Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and was helped by Black Widow and Falcon Sam Wilson during his escape. He meets his former friend Barnes.

Like Captain America, Barnes survived falling into icy water during World War II. The Soviets thawed him, equipped him with an electronic arm, and trained him into a killer loyal to the Soviets, known as the "Winter Soldier." Arrange for him to come to the United States to assassinate high-level figures.

Because Barnes lost his memory after waking up and did not recognize Captain America, the two had several fierce conflicts after the encounter. At the last moment, Captain America rescued the Winter Soldier, unlocked the secrets of S.H.I.E.L.D., and stopped the "Insight Project" "Execution.

The plot design of the movie is more in-depth than the first one, and the characters of Captain America are also more complete. There are many big scenes in the film, and there are more highlights than the first one.

The directors of "Captain America 2" are brothers Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, whose representative work is "The Lost Boys".

The main actors include Link, Sebastian Stan as the Winter Soldier, Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, Anthony Mackie as the Falcon, Samuel L. Robert Redford as villain Alexander Pierce and more.

The filming locations were mainly in Los Angeles, California, Washington, Cleveland, Ohio and other places.

Since there were a lot of scenes of Team USA training during the filming, Link also placed the training venue in the crew's training facility. Every day on the crew, apart from filming, he was training. Occasionally, Scarlett Johansson would sneak into his training room for a date.

Scarlett Johansson is the kind of woman who is very good and likes to play. She takes the initiative to come to Link every time.

But because Link is now stronger and stronger, his strength is also greater.

He was rough with her during workouts and not very tolerant of her body.

Every time it ends with Scarlett Johansson unable to support it.

Every time Scarlett would blame him for being too harsh, but a few days later she would sneak up on him and do whatever he wanted.

Link exercised frequently and had excess nutrition and energy.

When I was at home before, Ivaca, Taylor, Jennifer Lawrence, and Daddario were there. They were with me every week, so I didn't need to hold it in.

When filming in the crew, I often couldn't see Evaka. With his status as a big star, it was not convenient for him to go out and find a female companion.

Scarlett's willingness to sacrifice herself just solved his urgent need.

And Hayley Atwell, who plays Agent Carter, has only three scenes in the show and shyly expresses her affection for him as she leaves.

After finishing recording, Link accepted the other party's kindness and practiced an extra session in the training room.

Hayley Atwell is 30 years old this year. She is a British beauty with a good figure and a broad mind. She is not much worse than Ivaca and Daddario.

She is better at exercising than Scarlett.

"This is where I trained."

On the set of "Captain America 2", Link held up his shield and looked at the military camp and said.

"Is it a big change?"

Scarlett Johansson asked, holding a signal receiver.

"A little bit."

Link looked at the empty training ground and said in a daze.

"This is a blind spot."

Scarlett Johansson paused and said, "There's no infrared signal, there's no airwaves, there's not even radio. Whoever wrote the document needs a router to transmit it."

Link looked around and his eyes fell on a building.

"What's this?"

Scarlett asked.

"Army regulations prohibit the concealment of arms within five hundred yards of the military camp. There is a problem with the location of this building."

Link strode towards the cement building with a triangular roof.

"Cut!"

"This one passed."

shouted director Anthony Russo.

——

Link spent more than 20 days filming on the crew of "Captain America 2" to complete the outdoor scenes. The remaining parts were shot in the studio and required special effects production. Filming will continue in June or July.

After being busy for more than a month, Link returned to Los Angeles to take a rest. He took his children to training every day, occasionally went to the company, practiced piano and wrote new songs under Taylor's supervision. By the way, he also participated in three flight driving courses and one skydiving session.

In late April, Hollywood enters its summer season.

In April, Lionsgate Pictures has two movies released, "Identity Thief" and "Red Flame 2".

In the summer season, there are six movies, including "Hot Trouble," "Now You See Me," "The Marriage Counselor," "Her," "Rust and Bone," and "World War Z," which I also participated in the production of.

Of the two movies released in April, "Identity Thief," starring Jason Bateman, "Bridesmaids" supporting actress Melissa McCarthy, John Cho and others, has exceeded expectations at the box office. , is a comedy movie.

It is about a client agent who accidentally discovered that he was getting poorer and poorer, and his savings were rapidly eroding. After some tracking, he found that his identity had been stolen by a fat woman, and his hard-earned money was stolen by a ruthless man who looked like a "Hobbit". All the good and fat women have been used up. In order to recover the loss, the hero begins a tracking journey.

The production cost of the film was only 35 million US dollars. It was released for 22 days and the North American box office exceeded 100 million US dollars.

After more than a month of release, the North American box office reached 134 million US dollars. However, due to geographical reasons, the overseas box office performance was average. It only received 38.48 million US dollars at the overseas box office after more than a month of release.

The total box office reached 170 million.

Although it is not a dark horse at the box office, it is still a good movie. It is also the second movie released by Lionsgate this year to have a box office of over 100 million in North America.

It’s not even the summer season yet, but Lionsgate has already had two movies with box office sales exceeding 100 million, which makes many opponents of Lionsgate feel depressed.

This has also led to an increase in criticism of Lionsgate films in the media. Many professional film critics claim that although Lionsgate is already one of the "Big Seven" in Hollywood.

But it still follows the path of a small independent production company. The films it produces are mainly 'low-cost movies', shooting some low-quality horror movies and comedy movies, and are unwilling to take risks in investing in blockbusters and exploratory art films. Movie.

The famous film critic Sean O'Connell published an article in "Complete Film" magazine saying that "Lionsgate's current production model is slightly conservative" and a bit petty.

He believes that Lionsgate should be in line with the six major film studios and produce more blockbusters in order to maintain its rapid development momentum and become a truly major Hollywood film company.

In addition, the news that Lionsgate Pictures refused to fund the filming of "Ender's Game", which led to the postponement of the film, was also reported to the media. It was believed that there was a big problem when Lionsgate Pictures and Summit Entertainment merged, and the cooperation between the two parties Not pleasant.

There are also rumors that Lionsgate may sell Summit Entertainment.

Regarding these fabricated news, both Ivaca and Lionsgate took a cold approach and did not explain too much. They only filmed the established movie projects according to the original plan and let the box office data speak for themselves.

The second film "Red Flame Battlefield 2" will be released in mid-April.

The film was jointly produced by Summit Entertainment, DC Entertainment and other companies. It was completed last year with a production cost of US$84 million.

Starring Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and others, it is also an action movie. The combined age of the leading actors is over 400 years old.

Continuing the bad luck of recent action movies, the box office performance of this movie is also relatively average. The North American box office revenue in the two weeks after its release was only 40 million U.S. dollars. The overseas box office performance was slightly better, but it was also limited, with only 72.32 million U.S. dollars in two weeks.

The film's global box office is expected to be around US$150 million, which is probably just enough to break even.

Competitors were relieved to see that "Red Flame 2" did not continue to be a hit at the box office. If Lionsgate's movies continue to sell well and continue to devour the North American box office, the top executives of the six major film studios will be disappointed in the coming days. We have to live on tenterhooks.

Because in January, Time Warner Group was appointing Kevin Tetsuhara as the new CEO of Warner Pictures, resulting in the direct resignation of former Warner Pictures President Jeff Robinov.

It is said that the reason is that Time Warner Group was dissatisfied with Warner Pictures' box office performance being defeated by the small Lions Gate last year, so it made the decision to change the manager.

Robinov's departure has also made executives at other major film companies uneasy.

On the one hand, we will strengthen the production and distribution of our films and strive to achieve better box office results.

On the one hand, they are trying to find ways to suppress the performance of Lionsgate movies and pray that the box office of Lionsgate movies will not be too high.

If Lionsgate Pictures can still enter the top three in terms of box office share this year, senior executives of Universal, Paramount, 20th Century Fox and other film companies may also face the risk of being fired.

The "Hollywood Reporter" stated that the rise of Lionsgate has directly led to intensified competition in the film industry, which has inadvertently added a lot of pressure and anxiety to the top executives of the six major film studios, forcing them to invest more energy and money in filming more movies. A good movie to take back the 'cake' that originally belonged to the Big Six.

The newspaper called Lionsgate a 'Hollywood catfish'.

"Steven, how are Summit Entertainment going to solve the problem of insufficient funds?"

In the Lionsgate office, Link asked while flipping through the newspaper.

"Red Flame 2" is a movie invested by Summit Entertainment. If the movie does well at the box office, President Robert Friedman will once again apply to Lionsgate Films for funding to film "Ender's Game". Link and Eva Ka It’s also hard to refuse.

Since the box office performance of "Red Flame 2" was not satisfactory, Summit Entertainment should reconsider the shooting plan of "Ender's Game".

"Boss, Robert and I have discussed that "Ender's Game" is the first one and the cost needs to be controlled. If the first one sells well, it would be more appropriate to increase the cost of the second one to more than 100 million. After Robert considered it, he accepted In my opinion, I am going to revise the shooting plan and control the cost to around 80 million.”

said Lionsgate CEO Steven Biggs.

Link nodded, thought for a while and said: "At present, Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment have overlapped in many projects. It is OK to give Summit Entertainment's projects to Lionsgate, or Lionsgate's projects to Summit. I think this is not good.

We should follow the example of Sony-Columbia and Warner Pictures, with large production departments producing blockbusters and commercial films, and independent film labels producing low-cost genre films.

Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment can also be arranged in this way. In the future, Lionsgate will be responsible for big productions and horror movies, successful series movies, and Summit Entertainment will be responsible for producing low-cost genre films, just like Palm Beach Pictures.

The three companies are mainly Lionsgate, and the other two are auxiliary. Only when the three companies work closely together can the company develop better."

"Boss, we originally had this consideration, but Summit Entertainment just joined Lionsgate, and the merger of the two parties needs a process. However, since you mentioned this matter, I will bring it up at the next work meeting and strive to speed up the cooperation process between the two companies."

Steven Biggs said.

Link nodded slightly. He was just making a suggestion. The specific implementation needed to be done by Steven and others. It was definitely harder to do than to say, so he would not push them too much.

"Also, boss, I heard that the chairman of the jury of this year's Cannes Film Festival is Mr. Spielberg, and the jury members include Director Ang Lee, Christoph Waltz, Ms. Jennifer Lawrence and seven others. Do we need to contact them in advance to do award public relations?"

President Biggs said.

"Jennifer is a member of the jury?"

Link raised his eyebrows.

The Cannes Film Festival is coming soon, and "Rust and Bone" will also participate in this year's film festival. Link thought about winning an award for this movie, but he didn't expect Jennifer Lawrence to be a member of the jury.

According to the relationship between the two, if he really won the Cannes Best Actor, there would probably be people saying that there was a shady deal.

"Yes, the list of jury members has just been announced in the media."

President Biggs said.

Link thought about it and rejected Biggs' proposal. If he wanted to win the Cannes Best Actor Award, he would have to rely on his real ability. Relying on awards for public relations was not a good choice. If someone exposed it, it would be more harmful.

And with his current worth and many halos, it didn't matter if he won one more or one less Cannes Best Actor Award.

"Don't worry about it. If they recognize my performance, they can give me the award. If they don't, it doesn't matter. I will continue to work hard and strive to make more good movies."

Link said.