A futures market for movie-making? Two thumbs down

For those of you who find derivatives too boring of an investment, a new exchange recently OK'd by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission might please you: a movie futures exchange. Yes, if this pans out you'll be able to front the money for new movie projects in return for a taste of the net, according to Wharton professor of insurance and risk management Kent Smetters.

Smetters writes that this exchange, to be sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald, is being opposed by most big Hollywood studios and the MPAA, claiming that it will "lead to speculative bets, insider trading and false rumors." Since the industry has thrived for a century on the backs of whales and, more recently, venture capital, I don't see how this would be any different. Nonetheless, part of a financial reform bill currently working its way through Congress would ban the exchange. Spoil sports.