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
Viral Video: “House” Parodies “Pulp Fiction” February 24, 2011I haven’t watched an episode of FOX’s House M.D. since the beginning of this season, so I didn’t know about a certain homage to Pulp Fiction until Empire Magazine posted a video of it on Twitter. Take a look after the break to see the clip from the latest episode… Read More
Tron Legacy Soundtrack: Pushed Back To December 7th, Poster Partially Revealed October 11, 2010When the official website for the Tron Legacy soundtrack revealed the album’s release date, a poster for the soundtrack featuring album producers Daft Punk was teased. This weekend was the end of the countdown for the poster, but we only get a glimpse. The soundtrack has also been delayed a… Read More
Viral Video Round Up: @SleepySkunk, The Walking Dead, Captain Planet, And More! December 2, 2012The Internet is full of videos related to movies, whether they be fan made, studio made, or somewhere in between. We regularly bring you the best, most interesting, or just plain weirdest, and today we do it again. Check out the latest viral videos after the break. Read More