Conquer America, Start with a Boxing Champion

In mid-October, Lionsgate released the fourth film of the autumn season, "The Big Short".

The film is set against the backdrop of the 2008 US subprime mortgage crisis. It tells the story of several investment geniuses on Wall Street who made huge profits by shorting subprime CDS and became one of the few who made a lot of money in the financial disaster.

Starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and others, Link made a cameo appearance.

"The Big Short" was released on the third weekend of October. The box office was 10.92 million in the first three days of its premiere. After 21 days of release, it exceeded 60 million US dollars. For a documentary film, this box office data is not bad.

Overseas, it has been released for three weeks and has received 50.3 million US dollars in more than 80 countries and regions.

The total box office exceeded 100 million.

The production cost was 28 million US dollars, which is a hit movie.

The mainstream media also gave good reviews to the film, and it has a great chance of being shortlisted for next year's Oscars.

By the end of October, on the eve of Halloween, Lionsgate released the fifth film of the autumn season, "Split".

"Split" is a horror film directed by the famous director M. Night Shyamalan. After the "After Earth" project he directed in 2013 suffered a big loss, Shyamalan took a two-year break and cooperated with Lionsgate last year to shoot this low-budget film.

"Split" cost only 9 million US dollars to produce. It tells the story of a schizophrenia patient diagnosed with 23 multiple personalities by a psychiatrist.

The film stars James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy and others.

It took 40.01 million US dollars in 3,038 theaters in North America in the first three days of its premiere, and it won the weekly box office championship.

Halloween happened to be Sunday, and "Split" took 34.63 million US dollars in 3,299 theaters. Although it failed to set a new record, it ranked in the top ten among the movies released on Halloween.

It is also considered one of the best horror movies in the North American film market this year.

After 14 days of release, "Split" reached a North American box office of 101 million US dollars.

It became the tenth movie of Lionsgate to break the 100 million North American box office.

Since the beginning of November, the film has also been released in more than 50 countries and regions overseas, with a cumulative box office of 120 million US dollars in three weeks.

The total box office is expected to be around 300 million US dollars.

Compared with the production cost of 9 million, the profit ratio is more than 30 times, and it is also considered the most profitable dark horse movie this year.

And director Shyamalan, who "pitted all the six major Hollywood studios", has regained the attention of major Hollywood film companies through this movie.

After the success of "The Big Short" and "Split", Lionsgate's total box office this year has reached 2.12 billion US dollars, more than 300 million higher than Disney, which ranks second.

This data has exceeded the North American total box office record of 2.105 billion US dollars created by Warner Pictures in 2009, becoming the highest single-year total box office record among North American film distribution companies. Lionsgate has also become the second film company in history to have an annual revenue of more than 2 billion US dollars.

Considering that Lionsgate has four movies that have not been released, including "The Hunger Games 4" and "The Revenant", the media predicts that the total box office data of Lionsgate's movies released this year will exceed 2.5 billion, setting an unprecedented new record.

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In November, Link continued to practice boxing, and on the 5th, he led his team to Las Vegas-MGM Grand Hotel to participate in the heavyweight boxing title unification match with Klitschko.

Before this game, more than 100 companies in many parts of the world wanted to get the right to host this game, and large companies in Berlin, London, Tokyo, Warsaw and other places participated in the auction.

After three rounds of bidding, the right to host was snatched by many American sports companies and hotel alliances.

Link's appearance fee for this game reached an unprecedented 250 million US dollars. As long as he plays in the game, he can get this money even if he loses, while his opponent's appearance fee is 15 million.

This is the basic bonus, plus PPV revenue sharing, ticket sharing, advertising sponsorship, etc. If Link wins this game, the prize money is expected to reach 400 million US dollars.

Because this match has a great influence and has received much attention, Link and Klitschko came to Las Vegas three days before the match to promote and create topics to increase the popularity of the match.

Before the official match, the popularity of this championship match was not inferior to the NBA Finals, and many five-star hotels were booked out even though their prices increased by more than three times.

On Sunday, the 8th, the heavyweight boxing championship title merger match of the four major organizations began.

More than 20,000 spectators came to the scene that day, including hundreds of celebrities, including actors, singers, politicians, socialites, sports stars, and even the old father-in-law came to the scene to support.

Under the lens of the HBO camera, the front row of the audience was full of familiar faces to the public. HBO on-site reporter Steve Mandanda pointed to the audience and said that this match was like the Oscars ceremony, and the camera swept over all the stars.

"With so many stars here, it would be embarrassing if Link lost."

In the audience, De La Hoya turned his head to look at the surrounding seats, which were almost all stars. There were more than a hundred media reporters in the audience, all carrying cameras and guns, much more than the media who came to the "Battle of the Century" in May.

"Will Link lose?"

O'Neal asked quickly with his eyes wide open.

"Everyone will lose. If Link performs poorly on the stage, he will also lose."

"I know this, it's the same when playing basketball, but will Link perform poorly?"

"You can pray to God."

De La Hoya smiled.

O'Neal rolled his eyes and looked at Tyson, Holyfield, Chris Bird, George Foreman, Hashim Rahman and others beside him.

The reason why he sat here instead of sitting with LeBron James, Wade, Chris Paul and other colleagues was to listen to Tyson and others' explanation of the game.

"Mike, will Link lose? Some netizens said that Klitschko Jr. has his brother as a sparring partner, and the probability of winning is also very high."

O'Neal asked.

Tyson and others shook their heads and didn't plan to say much. Last time when Link and Klitschko played, they saw Link being beaten and retreating, and thought Link would lose.

It turned out to be all tactics, and Link fooled everyone.

Before the end of this game, they decided to remain silent to avoid being slapped in the face again.

O'Neal saw that several people were silent, and curled his thick lips unhappily.

In the audience not far from O'Neal's seat, Frank Duva looked at Link on the ring and sighed: "It's not easy. Link finally got to this point."

"Yes, I remember seven years ago I went to Miami Beach to chat with Link in person. If I knew he could get to this point today, I would sign him no matter how much it cost."

His wife Nora Duva also looked at Link and said.

Compared with seven years ago, Link has become taller, stronger, and more handsome, with a strong aura. The change is very big, like a different person.

"Haha, Link's offer was very high at the time, and you were all scared away. Only I dared to sign."

Frank smiled proudly with his arms folded.

"Yes, you did a very good job in signing Link. You have a very good vision."

"Thank you!"

Frank smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

Eddie Hearn, president of Arena Sports, Greg Cohen of Top Promotions, Frank Warren of Queensbury Promotions, Al Haymon of Top Champion Promotions, and others heard what Frank and his wife said, and couldn't help but sigh that Frank Duva was so lucky.

The reason why it was good luck rather than good vision was that in the past seven or eight years, Frank Duva had signed more than ten boxers, and only Link became the champion. The other boxers were very ordinary, so Frank was lucky to meet Link.

However, this kind of luck is very enviable. Frank was just an ordinary second-generation boxer with average performance in all aspects.

But after meeting Link, Frank's luck turned. He first founded Dynasty Promotions and earned hundreds of millions of dollars every year with Link. In the past two years, the company was successfully listed. The current market value is as high as 1.6 billion US dollars, surpassing top promotions, major events, etc., and becoming the strongest promotion company in the boxing industry.

And all this is because of Link.

Greg Cohen and others looked at Link on the boxing ring. If time could go back to the summer seven years ago, they would sign Link without hesitation, no matter what his requirements were.

Unfortunately, they can't go back.

Ding Ding Ding!

The game is about to start.