If the market attracts enough traders, they could provide studios with a useful source of predictive data on how movies will perform.
The wisdom of crowds -- even a savvy one -- is far from perfect, however.
At the Cantor event last week, participants came to a consensus of $230 million for the first month of box office for "Alice in Wonderland."
But the Disney movie ended up grossing $116 million on its first weekend alone, meaning that it will easily surpass $230 million within a month.
"The thing about movies is that there are lots of people who are entertained by talking about them," said Eric Zitzewitz, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, "and there are lots of people who think they know more than they really do."
via www.latimes.com
I'm really looking forward to the real-money version of HSX, and didn't know about the competitor (Veriana Networks' Trend Exchange) until this article.
My favorite bit of the article, by the way, is the above clip. Paging William Goldman...
Comments