Domination in America, Starting from being a Boxing Champion-Chapter 537 - 417 Mr. Shu

Link left the coffee shop and called Andrew Kramer about "Isolated Island Fright".

He had seen the movie. The production quality was mediocre, far inferior to the horror movies produced under Lionsgate Films.

The female leads and supporting actresses in swimsuits didn't compare to Western actresses in terms of physique, nor did they reveal enough to match the expectations. Moreover, the design of several thrilling scenes wasn't scary enough for American audiences who were used to seeing blood splatter everywhere.

The only advantage was that it was a Huaxia thriller, quite novel, which might attract some audience interest.

After purchasing the North American distribution rights, they would first release it in Chinatown cinemas in major cities. If the box office results were poor, they could release a DVD version or sell it to Netflix for free streaming on their platform.

As long as the asking price for "Isolated Island Fright" wasn't high, with Lionsgate's current channels, they basically wouldn't lose money.

He wanted Andrew to push the price down to the lowest in the negotiations, not exceeding five hundred thousand US dollars, as the production cost of "Isolated Island Fright" was only about two to three million US dollars.

"Huh?"

Just as he hung up, he suddenly noticed an electronic display in the cinema ahead flashing screening information for 'Mr. Tree', a movie from Huaxia. The supervising director was a Huaxia director, Jia Zhangke, who had been nominated twice at the main competition sector of the Cannes Film Festival. No other information was displayed.

Link stopped and went inside the venue to look around; not many people were there. Out of over a hundred seats, only about a dozen were occupied, mostly by Huaxia people.

The movie had been playing for over twenty minutes, currently showing a scene where 'Tree' goes to the hospital to treat his eyes and flirts with a young nurse.

The movie only had English subtitles, no English or French dubbing. Foreigners had to focus on the subtitles to follow the movie, but the translations were riddled with errors, making no sense at all, which only confused the viewers.

Moreover, focusing too much on the subtitles could cause them to miss out on the plot, making it even harder to understand.

Not even thirty minutes into the movie, almost all the foreigners in the venue had left, leaving only seven or eight Huaxia people in the front row.

"This movie is quite good. Why isn't anyone watching it?"

"As a Huaxia person, even I find the dialogue difficult to follow, let alone a bunch of foreigners."

"Exactly! Art films are inherently obscure and hard to understand, and with the language barrier, it's no wonder no one's watching."

"Hey, there's still one person over there. Why are they wearing a hat to watch the movie?"

Having heard the discussions from those in front, Link chuckled softly, watched for a few minutes, and then stood up to leave.

Once in the corridor, he called Andrew and asked him to acquire the North American distribution rights for "Mr. Tree".

This kind of movie had a low production cost and no foreign distributors were interested in buying, so it could basically be purchased for a song. He wasn't buying this movie to make money but because he liked it.

"Mr. Weinstein, you haven't finished watching the movie. Why not watch a little longer?"

"A waste of time, trash movie," he replied.

Just as Link hung up, he encountered Harvey coming out from the opposite cinema, flanked by two assistants and followed by a balding middle-aged man. The middle-aged man was doggedly pursuing Harvey, who walked away sternly with a grave expression.

"Link?"

Upon seeing him, Harvey immediately stopped, squinting his eyes, his brown under-eye bags twitching.

"Hi, Harvey, fancy meeting you here!"

Link said with a smile.

Harvey snorted lightly and, taking out a cigar, said with a sidelong glance, "Heard your Lionsgate movies are also showing? Any of them nominated?"

"No!"

"Ha! I suspected as much. Lionsgate specialises in trash movies, no surprise none was nominated."

"No worries, my movies perform well at the box office, always bringing surprises."

Link curled the corners of his mouth and said.

Harvey's face turned dark instantly, the fat on his face twitched a few times, and his expression became very ugly. He understood what Link was implying—this bastard was flaunting the box office success of "Bridesmaids" right to his face.

"Hmph, you won't be lucky forever, we'll see,"

Harvey glared at him and left with his entourage.

"Mr. Baker, do you have time to see what my movie is like?"

The middle-aged man invited warmly.

Link glanced at his watch; there was still time, so he entered the cinema. It was a French erotic film, shot in a voyeuristic style, with little plot and no artistic value—watching this kind of film was indeed a waste of time.

He watched for about four or five minutes before getting up and moving to another venue.

In just over an hour, he watched segments of more than twenty films but didn't recognize any. He realized how difficult it was to find one or two good films from thousands that hadn't been exposed by the media.

Once a film was delivered to the Cannes Film Festival, film lovers, media reporters, and professional critics from all over the world would move between various cinema venues.

If a film was of good quality, it would be discovered by the audience at the beginning of its screening, attracting more viewers. Subsequently, the media would report on it, critics would publish reviews, word of mouth would ferment, drawing the attention of the jury, and the good ones would be selected into the main competition section.

The whole festival process was like picking gold from sand, and the chances of overlooking a good film were extremely slim.

After 9 p.m., the film festival moved into the midnight show, and various venues began screening some explicit films.

The festival palace became even livelier, with many movie fans queued in the lobby with their previously obtained tickets, waiting to enter.

He wasn't very interested in these types of films and returned early to the seaside hotel to rest, meanwhile, he called Eva to inquire about the progress of the Warner Bros. Pictures' box office theft investigation.

Eva said that while arranging for the investigation, Warner Bros. Pictures found out about their actions and sent a marketing president to negotiate, persuading her and Catherine to drop it and offering to compensate some of the box office.

Eva's demand was to return all the box office revenue, otherwise, she would continue the investigation and use the law to protect the company's legitimate interests.

The Warner Bros. Pictures said they needed to think about it.

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Eva promised to give them time to consider and arranged for people to continue investigating. So far, they had retrieved evidence of some theaters participating in box office fraud. With this evidence, although they might not necessarily win a lawsuit, creating public opinion could still damage Warner Bros. Pictures' image.

Link told her to be careful and to bring more bodyguards when going out recently.

Eva laughed and agreed, asking him how Cannes was and whether he had seduced any beauties.

Link said no, not one of the women here could compare to a tenth of her.

After finishing the phone call, he sat on the balcony, drank a glass of red wine, watched the sea view of Cannes for a while, and then slept. He exercised the next morning and casually picked up several French newspapers from the hotel lobby. He found that there were many reviews about "Midnight in Paris."

Besides praising director Allen's unfading expertise and stable filmmaking skills, this film still bore the distinct Woody Allen style and could be called a sister piece to "Midnight in Barcelona".

The rest of the reviews all praised Link's acting skills, commending his refined and infectious performance style as charming and talented.

They praised his romantic scenes with Marion Cotillard and Jennifer Lawrence as spectacular, uplifting the entire quality of the film.

The reviews stated that the trio's acting skills were no less than those of Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, and Penelope Cruz from "Midnight in Barcelona".

Finally, "Le Figaro", "Le Francais Soir" and other newspapers published multiple film stills of him in their entertainment sections, all focusing on his close-ups in the film.

"Le Francais Soir" stated, 'Last night in Cannes, everyone was captivated by Link's presence on the screen. With his personal charm, he conquered this edition of Cannes,' and they predicted that upon the film's release, it would undoubtedly spark a new 'Link craze' globally, making movie fans worldwide fall for his charm.

Marion Cotillard also called to praise how handsome he looked in the photos, saying she had looked at them over and over again and planned to cut them out and keep them in her album as a keepsake.

Link touched his cheek, recalled director Allen's words that being too handsome could make one be called a male vase and envied by Oscars judges, and felt somewhat helpless at the moment.