Domination in America, Starting from being a Boxing Champion-Chapter 468 - 385: The Expendables Released

While shooting "American Captain" in Los Angeles, Link also took time to make cameo appearances in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and "You Are Still Here."

In the former film, he cameoed as the protagonist’s older brother, a football star and the protagonist’s idol and role model, featuring in four scenes, which were not very challenging.

The latter was a documentary directed by Casey Affleck about Joaquin, in which Link played himself, a top-level singer successful across fields, portrayed as a superstar and playboy with a rather chaotic personal life.

His part mainly consisted of two segments, one being his conversation with Joaquin Phoenix backstage after a performance, discussing their perspectives on rap music and their reflections after gaining fame.

The other part was him and Joaquin performing the lead song "Believer" from his second album on stage, along with the rap songs "I’m the one" and "Lighters."

To shoot this scene, the crew held a small concert in the Burbank area of Los Angeles where Link performed as a guest.

In October, he even flew to Paris to attend Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet’s engagement ceremony, and when he saw Marion, he unexpectedly found out she was also pregnant, though her belly was much smaller than Taylor’s.

Link asked her how many months along she was.

Marion told him it wasn’t his concern, urged him not to worry, and confided in his arms that Guillaume was good to her and loved her, which is why she had accepted his proposal.

Link, touching her belly, felt it was almost the same as Taylor’s. He remembered that Marion had been pregnant with her first child before shooting "Rust and Bone," also this year, so he could not be sure if this child was his.

Later, Guillaume also approached him, stating that Marion was now his wife and asking him not to interfere with their married life.

Link could only return to Los Angeles with mixed emotions to continue filming and training.

In early November, "The Expendables" was released. The movie had wrapped up in May and after six months of scheduling, was set to premiere in November.

This film brought together many top global action stars, including Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, and other veterans, as well as the currently most popular male singer and world boxing champion Link Baker.

Even before its release, the movie generated great anticipation and enthusiasm among action film fans and was hailed by many media outlets as the most anticipated action movie of 2010, labeled ’The Manliest Movie of the Year,’ and ’A Must-Watch Movie for Real Men.’

"The Expendables" did not disappoint, earning $41.05 million at 3,270 North American theaters over its opening weekend.

It outperformed the parody "Twilight Movie," Jennifer Aniston’s "Love Happens," Weinstein Company’s "Piranha 3D," and Universal’s major production "Nanny McPhee Returns," winning the weekend box office crown.

The film received mixed reviews.

Those who liked the film said the action scenes were impactful and explosive, reminiscent of watching classic action movies like "Rocky" and "First Blood" from the eighties and nineties, making it a true action film.

Those who disliked it called the movie clichéd and not in line with the tastes of current audiences, nor as explosive as expected.

The media gave it an average score of 72, while it earned a 68% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 46 supports and 14 oppositions; Yahoo’s film critics rated it a B.

Whether for or against, viewers were fairly satisfied with Link’s performance in the movie.

They felt his action scenes were not inferior to those of the veteran action actors, praised his handsome looks, strong and sexy physique, and said his coolness and fighting skills breathed new life into this old-fashioned, clichéd movie with an all greasy-old-men cast, significantly enhancing its watchability.

Some fans even said they only watched the scenes featuring Link, skipping the rest of the movie.

Many movie fans had urged Link to take on more action roles, to become an action actor rather than spending his time in films romancing female actresses, arguing that if people wanted to see him in love scenes, they could read about it in the newspapers without having to buy a ticket to the theater.

Thanks to this film, Link once again rose to global fame, with his handsome looks, cool fighting moves, and his playboy demeanor in the film also attracting countless fans.

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Complete Movie called him ’the next big action star.’

Vanity Fair described him as one of the most promising action actors among the new generation.

In its second week, The Expendables brought in 20.67 million US dollars in box office revenue, even though it had dropped by more than 50%, but since there were no strong competitors at the time, it still remained the box office champion for the week, with a North American cumulative box office of 61.72 million US dollars.

The estimated box office in North America was above 130 million US dollars, which isn’t considered too high relative to its 82 million US dollar production cost.

But the main cast of the film came from eight different countries, and Link, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis had extremely high popularity and box office appeal overseas, leading the media to believe that the international box office would surpass that of North America.

A conservative estimate put the global box office around 300 million US dollars, which, by that calculation, would make the film a big seller.

After the release of The Expendables, Link’s box office appeal was confirmed once again, with many movie companies waving large checks to work with him, many of them action films, but Link turned them down.

After becoming a global superstar, his desire for fame had waned;

and after becoming a billionaire, million-dollar paychecks held little temptation for him, as he now had limited time and preferred to participate in films that would make money for the company.

Like The Hunger Games.

Upon investigation, it was found that Lionsgate Films, a company primarily known for horror films and an independent film and television production company based in Canada since 1997, held the adaptation rights to this novel.

They had produced series like Saw, Texas Chainsaw 3D, All Cheerleaders Die, The Cabin in the Woods, The Blair Witch Project, and also some quality independent films like Hotel Rwanda, Dead Man Walking, Girl with a Pearl Earring, among others.

After The Hunger Games was published in ’08, Lionsgate Films acquired the adaptation rights and, as the rights were only valid for five years, they were currently in the process of production.

Palm Beach Films had extended a collaboration proposal to Lionsgate but had not yet received a response.

However, Link was not in a hurry; according to media reports, affected by the financial crisis and the development of the internet, which caused a significant reduction in DVD sales, Lionsgate had faced substantial losses in recent years, cutting staff by 8% since ’08, reducing 45 positions.

Even so, Lionsgate Films was still saddling a debt of 350 million US dollars, had announced a quarterly loss of 93.4 million US dollars in May, and expressed plans to continue reducing movie production to decrease losses.

As Bent the producer had said, in Hollywood, there are hardly any film companies that are not short of money.

Especially in the independent production company sector, major independent production companies like New Line, Focus, Lionsgate, Dimension, Weinstein Company, and Castle Rock Entertainment nearly all had financial deficits of hundreds of millions of US dollars.

As long as there is money daring to be invested, there is no need to worry that no one would take over.

Hollywood is also like a big casino, but the risks in this casino are higher than those in Las Vegas because here, if a bet fails, the losses could amount to tens of millions of US dollars.

Bent, when talking about film company losses, was actually advising him to take smaller steps, not to invest in too many projects at once, and to temporarily avoid large project investments to prevent losses.

Link understood his meaning, but The Hunger Games series had performed well at the box office, and after the Twilight Series, it was one of the most successful film series; it would be too bad to miss out, so he wanted the company to continue making contact with Lionsgate.