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
Reddit News: Monsters University, Game of Thrones, The Oscars, and More! February 21, 2013February 21, 2013Like many people, I lurk around Reddit during my downtime, and I find some pretty interesting stuff. Sometimes that stuff relates to movies and television, so I feel obligated to share it with our readers. After the break, check out what’s been making the rounds on Reddit recently.Pages: 1 2 Read More
Watch Part 1 of CollegeHumor’s “Dora the Explorer” Web Series March 19, 2013March 19, 2013Last week, CollegeHumor released a trailer for their three-part web series Dora the Explorer and the Destination Medallion, an action-packed parody based on their viral video of last year. Today, the first webisode went live, and you can watch it after the break. Read More
Fan Made Work Infographic: Bad Movie Physics Report Card December 28, 2010io9 is one of my favorite websites for all things science and science fiction. The gang over there has created a chart that grades space films on their science accuracy, such as sound in space (there is none). It’s been spreading around the film blogs, and it’s definitely worth a… Read More