Betting on movies

The battle lines are being drawn between Hollywood movie moguls and Wall Street wheeler-dealers over a plan to trade box-office futures as a commodity - much like soybeans or pork bellies. Bob Strauss in the Daily News.

On the one side are financial firms Cantor Fitzgerald and Veriana subsidiary Media Derivatives, which won preliminary approval this month from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to open two separate exchanges where investors could essentially bet on future box-office performance.

On the other are the major Hollywood studios and their lobbying arm, the Motion Picture Association of America, which maintain that movies don't lend themselves to informed speculation on pre-release profits.