Conquer America, Start with a Boxing Champion

Counting "Joy's Struggle", "The Conjuring 2" and "The Conjuring 3" released in January and February, as well as the love movie "Me Before You" released on Valentine's Day.

The current total box office of Lionsgate Pictures in North America has reached 460 million U.S. dollars, which is not bad.

It also allowed Lionsgate Pictures stock to slowly grow to $88 per share.

By April and May, Lionsgate Pictures will have four more movies released, including "Dark Lady 4," "Arrival," "Fifty Shades of Grey" and "Shark Tank."

Lionsgate has six movies released in the summer holiday season, including "Hacksaw Ridge," "Jumanji," "Suicide Squad," "Bad Moms," "Sausage Party" and "Bad Love."

Among them, "Jumanji" and "Arrival" are co-produced with Paramount Pictures, "Suicide Squad" is co-produced with Warner Pictures, and "Sausage Party" and "Bad Love" are co-produced with Annapurna Pictures.

Compared with last year, Lionsgate Pictures has fewer blockbusters released this summer, but the quality is good. How much box office it can get depends on the performance of its competitors.

In order to keep the company competitive with the six major film studios, Link will continue to read best-sellers in his free time, review scripts collected by Lionsgate, and gradually find more than a dozen potential film projects. .

Including "The Shape of Water", "Three Billboards", "The Universe", "A Star Is Born", etc., plus "Phantom Tailor", "Baby Driver", "All the Money in the World" and "Green Skin" recommended by the production department Book" etc.

There are currently more than 30 potential film projects in the Lionsgate script library. As long as it is done properly, Lionsgate Pictures will still be in a dominant position at the box office in the next two to three years.

"A Star Is Born?"

While he was reading the script, Taylor came from behind and took the script from his hand.

Link spread his hands helplessly and took a sip from the juice on the table. When he saw Cynthia coming over, he asked her how her school was and whether she had made any good friends.

Cynthia jumped into his arms and chattered with him to share interesting things she encountered in school.

The little girl is five years old this year. She studied with a tutor at home for the first two years. Now she is sent to a private school to learn more about her peers and improve her social skills.

The same goes for Alexander.

When little Margarita saw her brothers and sisters coming, she trotted downstairs and chattered non-stop.

The originally quiet living room suddenly became noisy.

"This script looks interesting. Do you want to play the leading role?"

Taylor asked after reading the script.

"No, it's Bradley Cooper's script, and we're looking for Lionsgate Pictures to collaborate on it."

"A Star Is Born" tells the story of Jackson, a has-been country music singer, who helps a young girl Elle who dreams of becoming a star to realize her music dream.

Bradley Cooper was originally planning to cooperate with Relativity Pictures, but Relativity declared bankruptcy at the end of last year, and the script was brought to Lionsgate by Cooper.

"Why don't you act? You haven't released an album for a long time, and you haven't sang. Like the male protagonist, you are a has-been singer. I think you are very suitable for the role."

Tyler teased, blinking his blue eyes.

"How could I be obsolete? As long as I am willing to release an album, I can still sell more than one million copies in the first week, easily crushing you."

Link smiled.

"Shameless talk!"

Taylor wrinkled the bridge of his nose and saw Ivaca coming over, smiling and saying hello.

Today is the weekend, and we have made an appointment to have dinner together.

"What do you think about me playing the heroine?"

Taylor asked.

"You act?"

Link shook his head. Taylor's acting skills were average and a bit exaggerated. The music video was OK, but the movie looked unprofessional and would ruin this good script.

Seeing him shaking his head, Taylor glared at him angrily. If Eva hadn't been stuck, she would definitely take action.

"Don't be upset, it's not that your acting skills are not good, it's that this role is not suitable for you. Ellie is an ordinary-looking, short singer with little talent, but you are beautiful and have a good figure, and you have become a popular singer before you are 20 years old. , there is a huge gap between her and Ellie, and it’s very awkward to act.”

Link explained.

"Huh, I'm just saying casually, why are you so serious?"

Taylor said.

"I have always been serious about movies. If I were not serious, Lionsgate would not be as big as it is now."

Link smiled.

Taylor snorted, ignored him, and pulled Ivaca to talk, thanking Ivaca for her help last time.

At the end of last year, Kanye West released a song called "Famous."

The lyrics talk about grabbing the microphone at the MTV Awards in 2009, claiming that Link and Taylor were unknowns at first, and they became famous by being tied to him, the "King of Rap".

There are also some very rude words in the lyrics.

After the song was released, it was criticized by many people. Link and Taylor are singer-songwriters who combine talent and good looks. If they want to be famous, they don't need to hype up Kanye.

Especially Link, from his debut in 2009 to his retirement in 2014, his songs and five albums were almost invincible in the music world. Winning the number one spot on the singles chart was easier than drinking water, and he topped the album sales list every year.

Also, before Link entered the music scene, he was an Olympic champion, a world boxing champion, and a movie star. He was very famous in his own right. In addition to his relationship with Taylor, he didn't need to hype it up with anyone at all.

In addition, in 2010 and 2011, Link used many rap songs to defeat the East Coast rap gangs. Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, T.I. and others also joined forces. Not his match.

Rather than relying on hype, it is better to say that Link defeated the East Coast rap gangs with his talent and stepped on their heads to become the king of the music industry.

As for Taylor, the news of her and Link's relationship became widely known at the beginning, and the two were bundled for hype.

What made Taylor popular was the news that she and Link broke up. Between April and June of 2010, Link's third album was a hit, and a private video of the locker room was exposed. Then the two broke up. At that time, the media was all about the two. news.

In 2011, it was exposed that Taylor had concealed her child, which turned her into a black and red singer, and her fame became even greater.

Later, Taylor relied on high-quality records to gradually establish herself as the queen of country music and the queen of pop music.

In the process of Taylor becoming famous, even if there is an element of becoming famous through Kanye, it is only a small part.

Moreover, the 'Microphone Stealing Incident' was caused by Kanye. Kanye took the initiative to stretch his face to be hit, not someone who took the initiative to use his traffic.

Following the release of Kanye's "Famous," Link and Taylor's fans expressed their displeasure and demanded an apology from Kanye.

Although Link has not released a song in the past two years, he is still a unique presence in the music industry. His multiple album sales records have never been broken by anyone. He is also a movie star, a super athlete, and the 13th richest man in the world.

Link can be regarded as the most famous American currently besides Obama.

In the past two years, Taylor's album sales have been higher than the last, and she has been in the top three of the revenue charts for three consecutive years. During the period when Adele was absent and Lady Gaga's popularity declined, Taylor was one of the top female singers.

Comparatively speaking, Kanye has done very poorly in recent years. His albums have failed to sell, his reputation has seriously declined, and he has long been left behind by Link and Taylor.

His purpose in writing this kind of song was to capitalize on the popularity of Link and Taylor to sell songs.

Now the song is known to many people, and Kanye has indeed achieved his goal.

Fans demanded an apology from Kanye, but Kanye insisted not to apologize, saying he had greeted Taylor in advance and released an edited recording of the phone call.

Kanye also took the lead in accusing Taylor of hypocrisy, saying one thing on the surface but another behind the scenes.

Kanye's fans didn't know the truth, so they came over to accuse Taylor and trolled Taylor's social account.

But before things got too big, Ivaca chatted privately with Kanye's wife, Kim Kardashian, and got the unedited phone recording from her.

The recording showed that Kanye lied, and the recording was redacted and largely inaccurate.

After the new recording was released, mainstream media and fans called Kanye a rotten person and asked him to get out of the music industry.

Kanye's reputation is in disgrace. He not only recorded when he was on the phone with others, but also deleted the content of the recording. This is a serious breach of trust and even illegal.

Taylor is using the new recording to sue Kanye, who could go to jail if convicted.

Kanye also had to stand up and apologize to Taylor and Link, promising to delete the "Famous" audio source and donate all profits to charity organizations.

This matter has just come to an end.

Link didn't know if Taylor, without this unfortunate experience, would lose his creative inspiration, but it didn't matter, he could help write it.

"How are you preparing for your new album? When will it be released?"

Link asked.

"We are currently working on it and will try to release it by the end of the year."

Taylor said easily.

"If you can't write a song, you can come to me and I'll help you write it."

"No need, I have hundreds of songs in my songbook, so I don't want your songs."

Taylor waved her hands proudly and followed Ivaca into the kitchen to help cook.

Link shook his head and continued reading the script.

There were just three little guys running around, and sometimes they even came to him to hide and seek, trying to pull him to play with them.

He could only put aside the script temporarily and take the three children out for a walk.

——

At the beginning of the year, in addition to reading scripts and taking care of his children, Link was also busy training in boxing.

He has two boxing title defenses in April and May, against WBA heavyweight title challenger Kubrat Pulev and WBC title challenger Manuel Char.

Both of these opponents are experts who have fought among the top 50 international boxing champions from the two major organizations of WBA/WBC after four qualifying matches.

When dealing with them, Link will also treat them as equal opponents to Klitschko and Klitschko.

In addition, I heard that Klitschko was dissatisfied with losing to him in the last game and planned to compete with him again.

Link doesn't object either. Without opponents like the Klitschko brothers, it would be boring in the boxing world.

There are also young heavyweight boxers such as Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, and Oleksandr Usyk who are gradually growing up.

If Link wants to secure his position as the leader of the four major organizations, he still needs to continue training.

In mid-April, Link flew with his boxing team to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to participate in the WBA World Boxing Championship Challenge held here. His opponent was Bulgarian boxer Kubrat Pulev.

Pulev is 35 years old. He is 1.9cm tall and has an arm length of 202cm. He once won the European Boxing Championship heavyweight championship in amateur competition. In 2009, he switched to professional boxing and is the European heavyweight boxing champion. He is known as the international boxing champion. The strongest person is known as the 'gatekeeper of the world boxing championship'.

In the WBA boxing champion challenger qualifiers at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, Pulev defeated Maurice Harris, George Arias, and Samuel Pitt successively, and got the qualification to challenge Link.

His current professional record is 23 wins and 1 loss in 24 games, and he only lost to Klitschko at the end of 2014.

The opponent is a technical boxer with superb boxing skills, good punching speed and reaction ability.

The only weakness is the weight of the punch, which is at the second-tier level among heavyweight boxers.

When encountering such an opponent, Link will use heavy punches to break the opponent's defense and then launch a strong attack.

Because he is fast enough and his fists are lethal enough, his opponent Kubrat Pulev persisted until the second round, and was knocked down four times by him, with a bleeding wound on his forehead.

At 143 seconds in the second round, Kubrat Pulev fell to the ground and failed to get up for 10 seconds.

Link easily won this WBA world boxing champion defense, and it was also the second time that he successfully defended the WBA heavyweight gold belt.