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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Thursday, March 19th, 2009 - 4 Comments »
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Why ANOTHER Attack On DreamWorks Animation?

ADD, 1:14p – Now Drudge has picked up this non-story based on a series of inaccurate suppositions. Un-f’ing-believable. Welcome to the media future that so many of us are thrilled to keep supporting… until it’s a pack of lies about our business.
=======
Once again, Nikki Finke is putting her ignorant self in the middle of DreamWorks Animation business.
Has she EVER known anything about how marketing and promotions work in this business… and has for decades?
First, she completely misstates the reality of a Monsters v Aliens Super Bowl promotion… that was underwritten by Sobe. Duh! You know how long marketers have piggybacked on new movies by paying for a lot of ads instead of paying cash for the public relationship? Longer than Nikki has been making shit up because someone with a grudge told her to.
Of course, Nikki has some guy named Rich Greenfield – yet another analyst who knows nothing about how this all works, but likes to guess and cast aspersions – who is making the stupid argument for her.
“Bank of America has apparently agreed to fund the incremental cost of a 3-D ticket.”
Apparently?
This is all a scheme to defraud the US government based on Jeff Katzenberg’s prior associations… APPARENTLY?
And then there is the idiotic notion that a bank promotion to increase the percentage of 3D ticket buys instead of just 2D – and where is the story about banks and other institutions subsidizing movie theaters by selling cut rate movie tickets for the last 20 years… uh… just because it’s not true shouldn’t stop it – is going to increase the box office for this massive wide release by some large amount. Besides this being a 100% shot in the dark, since this guy has no facts about how many promotional chits have gone out and can obviously have no idea how many will be used and/or in what context they will be used, he and Nikki continue to miss the real point because they don’t have a clue about how companies cross market and why.
This is Standard Operating Procedure.
Do they really think that BofA is paying DWA $3 or whatever the average difference is in tickets each time someone uses one of their chits?
And how legitimate is the company that guesses “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,” and sells it as a straight calculation… down to the penny?
Oy.
And this gem – “What’s incredible here is that DreamWorks Animation has been spending a fortune to market Monsters vs Aliens.”
Uh… hello… planet earth calling…
The problem that I have with this stuff is not that it is so incredibly misguided, but that some people take this stuff as news… including the first few commenters on Nikki’s gossip blog. And some poor idiot at the AP and Reuters will be forced to call up DreamWorks Animation and/or Paramount for answers to a non-question… and then, never do a story, because there is no story for a legit journalist here.
Gossip spreads. It doesn’t matter that it is false information, in some part because no one speaks to the lie because it is not actually a story. And thus, it becomes lore.
Enough already.

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4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Why ANOTHER Attack On DreamWorks Animation?”

  1. Crow T Robot says:
    March 19, 2009 at 10:09 am

    (does a shot)

  2. anghus says:
    March 19, 2009 at 3:28 pm

    doesn’t it suck when someone grinds an axe mercilessly and spins information to fit their own personal agenda?
    Speaking of, hadn’t heard you chime in on Watchmen lately.
    Look in the mirror Dave. You don’t do it as blatantly as as ferociously, but you’re guilty of pulling the same kind of hot winded, rage filled spin. Just because she is far better at it doesn’t make it any easier. And the louder you thump your chest, the more hollow it sounds.
    At this point, who online isn’t using their site to spin stories in the favor of their industry friends? Whether consciouss of it or not?

  3. doug r says:
    March 19, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    If you were Dreamworks, wouldn’t you be pulling out all the stops to get all the 3D screens you can. Look at the Monster House dynamic where 3D screens pulled in 2X what the 2D did per screen.
    If this movie takes off right, we could be seeing Shrek-like numbers here. I’m guessing a little above Simpsons-and everyone will be saying it’s a “failure like Watchmen”.
    Simpsons did $74 million opening weekend, I’m calling $85 million.

  4. David Poland says:
    March 20, 2009 at 1:09 am

    You can lead some to water, but you can’t make them think.

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