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UPDATE: When that awful idea of a Hollywood futures exchange linked to box office looked headed for approval, it looked like Cantor Fitzgerald would sell contracts on Iron Man 2 as its first film. Well, that pic came and went without any betting, er, trading. Now that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has allowed Media Derivatives to launch its Trend Exchange trading platform, the focus is once again on what will be the first pic traded. Well, my colleague Mike Fleming yesterday reported that the first contracts will be pegged to the performance of Takers, that Screen Gems/Sony Pictures bank robber film starring Matt Dillon and Hayden Christensen, T.I., and Paul Walker and due to be released in August.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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wow. this really really….awful. Think I’d bet against it.
Sell! Sell! Sell!
And by the looks of that poster, you might as well sell your Adobe stock too.
Sell it short.
Why is the lead character/Oscar nominated actor (Matt Dillon) not even included in the poster? Thank God Chris Brown made the poster though.
After seeing the trailer for this last weekend, I look forward to placing a short order on this POS.
“Matt Dillon, Hayden Christensen, and Paul Walker”
Why not save letters and just write: “Box, Office and Poison”?
Takers – whatever the strike, its a put.
Would be more fitting to launch with Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps!
Don’t know why you characterize film futures as “an awful idea.”
For reasons stated by “whiskey” and others on “Box Office Futures Bid Approved…” is may be necessary for the industry’s survival.
Because the studios continue to crank out product, that doesn’t mean they’re profitable.
Using “Harry Potter” as an example, what the studio’s are essentially doing to rolling over the revenues from one “Harry Potter” to make the next.
The only way most of been turning a profit is by selling every asset that isn’t nailed down – such as divisions – and through layoffs.
Their inability to turn sufficient profit, has and is eating into their operating exspenses which, although they can continue to produce product, means they produce 1 or 2 less films a year.
When they can no longer cover operating expenses – 2011/2012 – they’re out of business.
Better risk management is not the entire solution, because the whoe model is flawed.
Think of it: If Universal had hedged – which is to say sold – just 30% of the backend of “Bruno” – which by the way it can’t do on either the Cantor Exchange or TrendX – it would have made a profit.
That fact that “Bruno” didn’t do as well as expected also goes to the value of market research by the studios which has been the topic of a posting on the “Box Office Futures…” thread.
Better risk management = more profits.
If/when a studio can truly hedge with a futures product, films can be financed like IPOs which means more films.
It also means better ones because with a proper hedge in place, 99.99% of the risk is taken out of film finance.
Isn’t what’s good for the industry, good for Deadline Hollywood?
there’s going to be a lot of SHORT interest in this one!!!
-RnsW
Has the industry really forgotten the concept of art? Is it totally dead?
I feel ill.
If they’re smart, they’ll “short” the film.
The only thing awful about a futures exchange on the movie industry is that we will learn (very quickly) which Emperor Has No Clothes. It removing any and all emotions from the industry, only profit. Something the studios try to do but fail miserably. If the studios keep pushing drek, it will be hedged as drek.
Objectively one could argue that the studios are risk adverse because the inability to hedge those risks.
Perhaps, the studios took greater risks pre-US v. Paramount because the risks coud be hedged through the distribution chain which they, of course, controlled.
Introduce a way to hedge risks and movies may improve; become more artistic.
Subjectively one could also argue the talent and creatives were more – well – talented and creative in the industry’s early days.
Aucocisco Kid, you’re at it again, suggesting that box office betting parlors are somehow the path to industry salvation. How does either the Cantor or TrendX exchange create a market for film investors when “futures” can’t be sold until long after the pictures are completed? How is it that you would think a studio would ever risk — or be better off with — public knowledge that it is betting against its own product just weeks before release?
Studios can and did sell their backend interests all of the time. We called them hedge fund slate deals.
The problem isn’t risk management. The problem is low margins. No amount of futures trading (even the real kind, not these dressed-up betting rings) solves what ails the industry: an overall portfolio of mediocre movies made for too much money with too much backend given away to talent. Trading futures on that is like trading for a deck chair on the Titanic — you might be more comfortable on your slide into the abyss but it ain’t gonna save your tuchus.
mmmm-mmmmmm. I’d like to buy me some T.I. !!! He is hot!