Thanks, taxpayer!
That’s about the only time I’m going to say that between here and tax season, not only because I’m going to get nailed to the wall by the IRS like I do every year, but I also have taxes for my production company, which are a total bitch and feet of paperwork (as opposed to exaggerating by saying “miles” I say “feet,” because my paperwork stack is several feet high).
The good news is that my company does banking with Bank Of America, where we started our newest checking account mere days before Lehman took the plunge. And usually, I’m not a big fan of BoA, not because they took bailout money, but because their customer service alternates between the fast service I’d expect and the shittiest shit over-the-phone bullcrap, and they switch completely randomly.
That being said, BoA looks to be giving me the chance to upgrade from a 2D showing to a 3D showing of Monsters Vs. Aliens when that flick comes out, which is perfect since we’ve already established that Monsters Vs. Aliens will have an additional 3D fee.
The question being asked is: Is this our bailout money that is paying for this?
From DHD:
It took respected media analyst Rich Greenfield of Pali Research to uncover this staggering scheme (registration required). He found out that Bank of America was helping families to see Monsters vs Aliens in 3-D rather than 2-D at no additional cost when it starts playing in theaters on Friday, March 27th. (The promotion is here.) And at the same time helping out the box office grosses of Katzenberg’s DreamWorks Animation, a publicly traded company.
“Why Bank of America?,” Greenfield asks in a report posted this morning. “We have not seen any formal announcement about the Bank of America/[DWA] promotion beyond an increasing number of consumers discussing the promotion link on Twitter. However, we find it odd that a bank that just received $45 bn [billion] in government aid is paying for consumers across the US to see a movie in 3-D vs. 2-D at no extra cost. We also wonder whether the presence of DWA’s President, Lew Coleman, helped DWA convince Bank of America to enter into the promotion, as Coleman is a former Vice Chairman and CFO of Bank of America.”
Greenfield found a .pdf for next weekend’s Bank of America offer which says it is limited to its customers (credit card, banking, etc). But he also discovered that the online system allows anybody to participate as long as they have an e-mail address. Consumers can receive up to 4 certificates per e-mail address to upgrade from 2-D to 3-D via the online registration form. However, Imax and AMC theaters are excluded from the promo.
“If MvA [Monsters vs Aliens] skews heavily toward 3D tickets due to Bank of America subsidizing the incremental 3-D cost (only valid on opening weekend), we believe the odds are increasing that MvA will outperform our opening weekend box office expectation of $55 mm [million].” Greenfield predicts.
This week, Pali Research calculated that Dreamworks Animation is getting an average 3-D upcharge of $3.18 for Monsters vs. Aliens as opposed to the cost of an average 2-D ticket. “While the 3-D premium was less than DWA management expected, we believe the real driver of the effective premium will be driven by the percentage of attendees who pay to see the movie in 3-D vs. 2-D (as we presume the 2,000 3D screens will be in greater demand than the 5,000+ 2-D screens),” Greenfield writes. “We are increasingly confident that there will be a significantly higher percentage of MvA attendees at 3-D screens, as Bank of America has apparently agreed to fund the incremental cost of a 3-D ticket.”
According to Greenfield, the reward certificate provides a $2-$5 value, but he couldn’t find a premium above $4.
Did you miss that link? CLICK HERE for Free MvA 3D upgrades, and try not to think about how you’re getting screwed if you don’t see Monsters Vs Aliens, because you’re totally paying for me to see it in 3D.
