Chapter 457 The American Team is Released (10/10)

Only one day later, good news came from China.

In the men's 400-meter freestyle, Link defeated the United States' Hansen, South Africa's Van der Berg, Australia's Sprengel and other famous swimming stars, with an amazing result of 3 minutes, 28 seconds and 16, once again set the world record in the event.

On the fifth day of the competition, Link won five consecutive gold medals and set world records in four events, and all the remaining five events entered the finals.

After the news came back, the American media rushed to report, all amazed by Link's achievements at the World Swimming Championships, and praised him as the "sea king", "torpedo", and "nuclear submarine".

This also caused many media outlets to criticize Link in the news the day before, saying that he bullied Taylor and was a scumbag. Only one day later, these media turned to touting him and praised him as the best and most powerful man in the world. Man.

This rapid change is not the result of the conscience of media practitioners, nor is it the result of public relations between Paramount Music and Link. It is the fact that people like to watch this kind of news, and reporting this kind of news can gain a sense of identity.

Because Link is now representing the U.S. team in the competition outside, the people are happy for his results.

If the mainstream media at this time, regardless of the will of the people, is still poking his spine behind his back and scolding him, it is a wrong position.

Not only do ordinary people not accept it, but capital will not accept it either.

Those members of parliament who claim to represent the people are also unacceptable. They will use their personal influence to criticize the media, help Link speak, and sway a wave of favor in front of the people to get some votes.

Under this situation, the media can only abandon the original critical articles, quickly change their positions, and start to say good things for Link to please the readership.

“Haha, it's great, it's great, Link is really an amazing guy, I said earlier that letting him play Captain America will bring us a lot of surprises.

You see, the newspapers are full of news praising Link, saying that he is Superman, the American captain of the swimming team, and a nuclear-powered submarine.

Haha, it's all Quarink's articles. How much publicity money will this save for our company?

My dear Link is really amazing. It was the most correct decision to cooperate with him at the beginning.”

At the headquarters of Paramount Pictures, Frank Abelanz, president of global distribution and marketing, held a stack of newspapers and kept talking to several subordinates at his desk, the smile on his face never stopped.

“.”

The management of the distribution department glanced at each other and secretly curled their mouths.

In this office a few days ago, Abramz cursed Link with a black face as an asshole, a big pit, and scolded the production company and Marvel Pictures for not choosing actors. Looking for such a big trouble as Link to be Captain America is asking for trouble.

He also scolded Link for causing Paramount Pictures to go bankrupt.

Only two or three days later, President Abramz quickly changed his position, praised Link, and said with a thick face that it was his suggestion to choose Link to play Captain America. In the end, he even dared to use the word ‘dear’. It's shameless.

“Tom, I will allocate another five million to your department to continue to hype the news of Link's victory in the World Championships. The more lively the better.

The statement of the American captain of this swimming team is very good. It can be hyped. Our goal is to make Link the real captain of the United States.

There is also "Captain America" about to be released. Link is unable to participate in the premiere ceremony and other publicity when he is playing outside. We also want to explain the situation to the fans and let them come to the theater to support Link's movie and also support Link to continue to win the gold medal.

Our box office will not disappoint Link, and Link's performance in the game will not disappoint us.”

President Abramz said with interest.

“Okay, Mr. President.”

Tom, head of the propaganda department, nodded next.

Abramz continued to assign tasks to several other supervisors.

Now the mainstream media are helping to promote Link, which is tantamount to helping them promote the movie. At this time, "Captain America" is equivalent to standing on the cusp of public opinion. If they don't take the opportunity to push the boat along the water and set sail with the wind, it would be stupid.

For them, veterans of propaganda and hype, they will never make such low-level mistakes.

Driven by the publicity and distribution department of Paramount Pictures, more and more media have joined the ranks of promoting Link and "Captain America".

This kind of publicity is not only in the United States, but also all over the world, including the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Germany and other countries and regions where "Captain America" is released simultaneously.

This also caused many foreign people who didn't know that Link was a swimmer to look dumbfounded.

World boxing champion, music superstar, movie star, billionaire, playboy Link is still a swimmer?

Still won five gold medals at the World Championships?

Is it really fake?

——

After a period of intensive publicity, on July 22, the seventh day of the World Championships, "Captain America" was released in 4,115 theaters in North America, with a weekend box office of 70.82 million U.S. dollars and a single-theater box office of nearly 18,000 U.S. dollars. , This week's box office ranking champion.

Although the premiere result of 70.82 million US dollars is not as good as the 1.69 US dollars of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" released on July 15, it is also not as good as "Batman: The Dark Knight", "Transformers 2", "Pirates of the Caribbean 2", "Spider-Man 3", "Twilight 3" and other blockbusters.

But it performed better at the box office than several other movies of the same type this year.

Before "Captain America", the premiere box office of "Thor", which was released in June, was US665.7 million, "Green Lantern" was US553.2 million, and "X-Men: The First Battle" grossed US555.1 million on the opening weekend.

The cost of "Captain America" is 140 million, including the 3D version. Compared with the cost of "Thor" of 150 million U.S. dollars, "X-Men" of 160 million U.S. dollars, and "Green Lantern" of 200 million U.S. dollars, the cost of the U.S. team is also lower.

Judging from these data, the US team was a success at the box office.

There is also a relatively good reputation.

34 U.S. media gave the film a comprehensive score of 71 points, including "Complete Movie", "Box Office Magazine", "Chicago Reader" and other 9 media gave the film a rating of more than 80 points.

"The Hollywood Reporter", "Time", "The Washington Post" and other 12 media outlets gave more than 70 points of evaluation.

Relatively demanding media such as "Rolling Stone", "Variety", "The Wall Street Journal" and "The Village Voice" all gave more than 40 points.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the freshness is 75%, with 84 people supporting and 28 opposing; on Yahoo, the audience rating is B.

The reputation is much better than the street movie "Green Lantern", a little better than "Thor", and comparable to "X-Men".

There are also media that are relatively positive when evaluating the actor Link.

The "Chicago Tribune" commented that Link, the most stylish super hero blockbuster of "Team America" this year, is undoubtedly the most perfect Captain America, and almost no one will be able to surpass him in the future, because Link himself is the living Captain America.

"The Washington Post" believes that "American Team" is undoubtedly a reliable movie.

Not only did the super hero save the world, but the success at the box office also saved some face for the increasingly depressed super hero movies.Link is also a reliable Captain America.

In the current swimming competition of the World Championships in Dahai City, when the main players of the American team, Phelps, Hansen, Van der Kaye, etc., missed one after another, Link turned the tide and won six gold medals in six events alone, setting four world records, and stabilizing the number of gold medals of the American team in one fell swoop. In the first place.

With this alone, Link, Captain America, is blameless.

The review of "Village Voice" magazine was more harsh, saying that it was unnecessary to watch a contrived and trite movie for more than two hours.

Although Link is the only highlight of this film, the director did not make perfect use of Link's literary face and delicate and gentle performance style in "Midnight in Paris" like Director Woody Allen.

It also did not show Link's bravery and strength in "The Fighter" and "The Expendables", valuing family and brotherhood, so that Link's performance has always been in a very pompous state.

Link+ The charm of Captain America < Link himself, I hope the next one will do better.

——

“Link, come on!Link, come on!”

When "Captain America" was being released in more than 20 countries around the world, the 14th Swimming World Championships were also in full swing.

The World Swimming Championships is the highest-level international swimming event organized by the International Swimming Federation.

Since 1973, it has been held every two years. After defeating Doha in March 2007, Huaxia Dahai City successfully won the right to host the 14th World Swimming Championships in 2011. This is also the first time that China has hosted the swimming World Championships.

It includes five major events in swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, water polo, and open water, and 68 small events.

The main venue of the game is at the Oriental Sports Center in Dahai City.

On the ninth day of the competition, the men's 1500-meter freestyle event is being held in the swimming pool.

In the third track, it was Link who was wearing a blue shark skin suit.

Compared with the competitors in the eight tracks around him, his speed is obviously much faster.

After the third turn, his speed became faster and faster, directly throwing away the second Canadian player Corundo by one-third of the track, and throwing away more other opponents.

“This pervert!”

In the audience area, "Flying Fish" Phelps clenched his fists and cursed with a distorted expression.

“Don't be jealous!Don't be jealous, Link is not an ordinary person, he is Captain America.”

Teammate Ryan Lochte comforted.

“How could I not be jealous? This pervert is a boxer. He exercises his muscles in the training ground every day. Why can he swim so fast when he gets in the water? Also, he makes movies and sings and picks up girls every day. He hasn't practiced seriously several times a year. Why do you swim faster and faster?This is not fair.”

Phelps said with envy and jealousy.

Compared to Link crushing other opponents in the freestyle event, what made him even more upset was that Link participated in the medley competition for the first time and actually beat him to second place on the 400-meter individual medley track. He was third.

It turned out that Link was not good at this project, and he was not his opponent when he participated in the Swimming World Championships in 2009.

But in the past two years, Link has been able to beat him in this event, rising from seventh in the international rankings to second in the international rankings, only 1.5 seconds slower than the first place. At this rate of growth, he has a great chance to win the championship of the event at next year's Olympic Games.

It will also throw him further away.

What makes Phelps even more jealous is that Link has only participated in swimming competitions at the intramural games in the past two years, and has not participated in other competitions at all. He usually only trains in the swimming pool at home and rarely goes to the swimming pool.

In this way, you can swim faster than yourself.

Except for perversion, he couldn't find any other adjectives.

“Ryan, Link said that training boxing can also improve swimming speed. Should we try it too and add boxing training content to training?”

Phelps touched his chin and pondered.

“This.”

Ryan Lochte didn't know how to answer.

From the perspective of sports science, it feels a bit ridiculous. Boxing training is to increase the strength of the upper limbs and the ability of the hands and feet to cooperate, while swimming is more comprehensive in training and requires the whole body muscles to cooperate.

The muscle groups exercised by the two sports are different, and the focus is different.

The content of boxing training should have little effect on improving swimming speed.

But the person who said that boxing training can help improve swimming skills is Link, the great god of swimming. His personal practice and his competition data seem to be very convincing.

“You should ask Coach Bob Bowman about this, he should be able to give you better guidance.”

Lochet said.

Phelps nodded.

drop!

There was a tone in the swimming pool, and Link on the third track reached the finish line first.

“How much time?”

Phelps and other members of the American team stood up and looked at the display of the controller.

When they saw that the above showed 14 minutes, 22 seconds and 17', everyone cheered.

The original world record for this event was set by German athlete Biederman in the 2008 Olympics. His record was 14 minutes and 37 seconds, which was held for three years.

Link directly increased this record by 15 seconds this time.

“It's so perverted.”

Phelps had nothing to say.

On this side of the pool track, Link sat on the shore and waited for more than ten seconds before the second Canadian player, Corundo, and the third Tunisian player, Meluli, swam to the finish line. The results of the two were 14 minutes 39 seconds and 14 minutes 41 seconds respectively.

Both of them looked at Link speechlessly, muttering that it was this pervert again.

Since Link won six consecutive championships, he has become the great devil of this world championships. As long as the players in each event meet him, they can't help but scream and suffer.

Facing an opponent like Link, everyone didn't know how to deal with it.

“Hello, Mr. Baker, can I interview you?”

When Link left the pool, a CCTV5 reporter walked over with a microphone.

“Yes, beautiful Miss Reporter, just ask any questions you have.”

Link wiped the water stains on his face with a towel and said.

“Mr. Baker, congratulations on winning the 1500-meter freestyle and setting a new world record. How are you feeling now?”

Miss Reporter asked.

“Great!I like to play here. I'm talking about Dahai City. This is my second time here this year. It feels like I'm at home. Yes, I'm in a good mood.”

Link smiled at the camera lens wearing a towel.

“Mr. Baker, what do you think of the strength of the opponents in this competition?”

The reporter continued to ask.

“Are you asking about Corundo and Meluli?A few of them are not bad, but it's a pity that I met me, I'm a little better than them.”

“Do you know Sun Yang of Huaxia, what do you think of his strength?”

Miss Reporter asked.

“Sun Yang?He doesn't seem to have participated in the 1500m event.”

Link looked at the direction of the lane, and only one Chinese player, Zhang Lin, was in seventh place, some distance from third.

“Yes, Sun Yang participated in the butterfly and breaststroke events. He defeated Phelps in yesterday's competition and won the 200-meter butterfly.”

Miss Reporter said.

“Yes, I watched yesterday's competition. Sun Yang was able to beat Phelps in this event. His strength is very good. I think he is one of the most dazzling stars in this world Championships. If he wants, I would love to ask him about butterfly swimming skills.”

Not far away, Sun Yang was going to come over to say hello to Link, but suddenly heard him say that he wanted to learn butterfly swimming skills, so he hurriedly left around the pillar.

Everyone knows that Link is perverted in freestyle events.

He performs generally in highly skilled events such as butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke, but he also has the strength of the top ten in the world. If he learns the technique, he will have more enemies in the competition in the future.

This kind of enemy-funded thing cannot be done.

“Mr. Baker, thank you for accepting the interview. I wish you more records at this world Championships.”

“Thank you, I will.”

Link waved his hand to the camera, put on his headphones and left the scene.

“Link!Link!”

When Link exited, many fans in the audience were cheering for him, as were Lilith Zhao and Yang Dami.

Link waved his hand, took the initiative to sign autographs for the fans in the front row, and took pictures with several fans of the athletes who surrounded him.

“Sister Mi, the boss is too good, the world boxing champion, the top singer, the billionaire, or the seven-time world championship swimming champion, is he superman?”

In the audience, Lilith Zhao stared at Link in the audience with wide eyes, her small round face full of admiration and admiration.

“That's, don't look at whose boss it is.”

Yang Dami smiled triumphantly, patted Lilith Zhao on the shoulder, and called her to greet the boss after get off work.

——

On July 31st, the 14th Swimming World Championships successfully closed at the Oriental Sports Center in Dahai City.

Link signed up to compete in ten events, and finally became the person with the largest number of gold medals and medals in the world Championships with 7 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze.

The gold medal events include the 50-meter, 100-meter, 200-meter, 400-meter, and 1500-meter freestyle events, the men's 4×100-meter freestyle relay, and the men's 4×200-meter freestyle relay.

The two silver medals came from the 400-meter individual medley and the men's 4x100-meter medley relay.

The bronze medal came from the 200-meter individual medley.

At the same time, Link and the U.S. swimming team also set world records in six events, and Link personally won tickets to the Olympic Games in ten events.

“Link, how about I train boxing with you too?”

On the plane back to the United States, Phelps found Link and asked.

“No problem, I train at the Muscle Beach Club in Los Angeles. If you are interested in boxing, feel free to come to me.”

Link wore a headset and looked through the American newspapers and said.

“I'm not interested in boxing. What I'm interested in is your training method. How do you train and why do you swim faster and faster?”

Phelps frowned and looked at him and asked.

Link smiled softly, folded the paper in his hand, and said, "Because I work harder in training, I train for more than 50 hours a week, and my physical fitness has been greatly improved.”

“More than fifty hours a week?”

Phelps thought for a while and shook his head. No one can do this. After practicing for so long every day, his body can't bear it, and he can't practice for nothing.

“Link, do you want to learn breaststroke, butterfly, backstroke, I can teach you.”

“Oh, why are you willing to teach me now?”

In the past, he was going to Boston to find Phelps to learn these three techniques. Phelps always shirked that he didn't have time. He only sent him some video materials, and he didn't teach the core techniques at all.

“Don't ask so much. I'm training in the swimming pool now. Remember to come and find me when you have time. Let's train together.”

Phelps said.

“OK！”

Link nodded in response, and continued to read the newspapers in his hand, mainly film news.

"Captain America" was released for seven days, with a cumulative North American box office of 118 million US dollars and an overseas box office performance of 102 million US dollars. The total box office return in the first week looks very good, much better than the performance of the same type of movie this year.

In the top ten of the box office rankings, there is also a movie starring Link. After "Midnight in Paris" was released on June 10, it ranked in the top 13 at the box office for seven consecutive weeks.

Affected by "Captain America" this week, the box office increased slightly.

Ranked tenth with 1.89 million U.S. dollars, the cumulative North American box office reached 60.69 million U.S. dollars, the overseas box office is currently about 11,400 U.S. dollars, and the global box office is expected to be around 180 million.

There is also the postponed screening of "Bridesmaids", which ranked 14th in the weekly box office list with 1.28 million US dollars.

The cumulative box office in North America is 137 million US dollars, and the overseas box office is 208 million. In the past three months of screening, the box office potential has been exhausted, and the global box office is expected to be about 350 million US dollars.

According to the global box office of 350 million, Palm Beach Pictures, as one of the producers, has an income of about 75 million, Lionsgate's distribution income is about 21 million, and Warner Pictures' box office compensation is about 12 million.

The total revenue is about 108 million, excluding 20 million investment costs, about 7.5 million publicity costs, and net income is almost 80 million U.S. dollars.

It took more than two years to earn 80 million, which is a high-return investment from an investment point of view.

For Link personally, it was mediocre.

Link flipped through other newspapers again, wanting to see how many news scolded him, but after going through it again, he didn't find a negative report.

At most, film critics commented that his performance in "American Team" was slightly inferior to "Midnight in Paris".

On the contrary, there is a lot of news that praises.

"USA Today" praised him for continuing his magical performance at the World Championships, first winning five gold medals in the individual event, and then helping the United States team win two gold medals in the relay race. He is a competent captain of the United States.

"Variety Magazine" commented that he performed well in "Team America" and was the best Captain America. He was one of the few highlights in this boring movie and contributed more than 45% to the movie's box office.

Link went through it again, and indeed did not see the negative news criticizing him, nor did he criticize Taylor's news.

What happened to him and Taylor some time ago does not seem to have happened.

Link smiled softly and breathed a sigh of relief. This matter has finally passed. The next time I go to see the child, I can look at it confidently without being afraid of Taylor's face.

Buzzing!

Arriving in Los Angeles, the plane landed gently at Los Angeles International Airport.

When leaving the airport, Link and the members of the swimming team were treated like VIPs.

Hundreds of media reporters and thousands of fans picked up in front of the airport. Reporters rushed to interview Link. The fans excitedly shouted Link's name and asked him for an autographed photo.

Link was also fully satisfied, and he delayed for half an hour in front of the airport before saying goodbye to his teammates and getting in the car.

“It's finally quiet.”

Link closed the door and sighed.

“Honey, welcome home.”

Hearing the sound, he turned his head and looked back, and saw Ivanka holding a bouquet of flowers and handing it over with a smile.

She was wearing loose blond hair and a ladies' suit skirt she wore at work. On her glamorous and dignified cheeks, her red lips were slightly cocked, with a gentle smile, which made the whole carriage suddenly light up, and the air was filled with peach-like fragrance.

Link smiled softly, couldn't help but stretched out his hand to hug her, lowered his head and kissed her rose-colored lips, and Ivanka responded to him tenderly.

Ms. Anna smiled and turned to look at the sparkling sea outside the window.

(End of this chapter)