Betting On Box Office Opening Weekends Approved Dan Koelsch, June 15, 2010 Want to make some serious money predicting box office opening weekend results? Now you can, at via stock exchange. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a contract with the new Trend Exchange that allow traders to bet on a movie’s opening weekend gross. While a new revenue stream is always nice, there could be some serious downside to this. There has been a lot of opposition to betting on future box-office receipts within the film industry, most prominently from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), as it could actually hurt box office performance. This could also have a serious affect on the viral trends of new releases. Anyone with a stake in the exchange could manipulate word of mouth and other viral marketing of films if they had enough influence. As the L.A. Times writes:In a follow-up interview, [Bart] Chilton [a dissenting commissioner] added that he was particularly concerned about the ability of studios to manipulate the price of a future through marketing and other decisions, which he said was very different from existing futures contracts related to agriculture and other products. I would imagine this would bring a lot more pressure for hyped films to perform well, which only seems to make matters worse for a fickle industry. I don’t have a business degree, so some of the details on this fly over my head, but this is obviously a hotly debated issue. What do you think? News Viral News Box OfficeTrend ExchangeWeekend Box Office
The Buzz: Rihanna Tries To Act, Del Toro Teams With Cameron, Recall Being Remade, Spielberg Needs a New Lincoln, and More! July 31, 2010August 1, 2010The Buzz is a feature in which we round up the biggest and most popular film and television stories of the week. Why go through pages of blogs just to find out what everyone is talking about? We’ve got it all right here. Check out all the stories after the… Read More
New Surrogates Pics and Music Video August 27, 2009August 27, 2009Not much news lately for Surrogates, but yesterday we got a few new photos and a music video that features some footage from the sci-fi film. Our friends at First Showing posted the new pics yesterday, and Executive Editor Alex was not impressed. I’ve heard a lot people being kind… Read More
Contests Funny Or Die Let’s You Make A Movie With Jean-Claude Van Damme February 20, 2014Have you ever wished you could make a movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme? Well, now you can with JCVD’s Make My Movie Challenge via the website Funny or Die. After the break, find out more about the contest and what you need to do to pull off your own Van Damme action… Read More