Bank Of America subsidizing consumers to see Hollywood film

posted by quasimodo on March 24, 2009 at 7:45 am

It appears that the American taxpayers are footing the bill for a plan to promote the 3D debut of Dreamworks' “Monsters vs. Aliens” on March 27. Bank of America, which has received $45 billion in “bailout” funds from the federal government is offering their customers complimentary ticket upgrades to see the movie in 3D vs. 2D at no additional cost. Deadline Hollywood Daily notes a connection between DWA’s president, Lew Coleman, who is Bank of America’s former vice chairman and CFO:

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.”

Read the rest of the story at Deadline Hollywood.