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: DC Movies, Spielberg Predictions, World War Z, and More! June 14, 2013The Buzz is a feature in which we round up the Top 3 most-buzzed-about movie/TV stories of the week (in more-or-less chronological order). Why go through pages of blogs just to find out what everyone is talking about? We’ve got it all right here in The Buzz. Read More
D.J. Caruso Directs “First Interactive Social Horror Film Experience” Starring Emmy Rossum July 13, 2011July 13, 2011How would you like to save the beautiful Emmy Rossum from a kidnapper? You will get that chance soon thanks to a unique project titled Inside. Described as the “first interactive social horror film experience”, you affect the plot and interact with the characters using social media. You can even… Read More
Viral Video: NBC Spoofs E! The True Hollywood Story Using ‘The Blacklist’s Raymon “Red” Reddington September 29, 2014September 29, 2014What made The Blacklist‘s Raymond “Red” Reddington the man he is today? Well, fans of show may know or slightly know what is going on through Red’s head, considering the series is only in its second season. Now entering its second season, The Blacklist will give fans more insight as… Read More