NEW YORK, Feb 23, (RTRS): Traders will soon be able to place possibly the surest bet around: the next James Cameron film. Cantor Fitzgerald said on Monday it expects to launch an electronic futures exchange next month that would allow investors to bet on box office returns for movies. The closely held broker dealer expects the new asset class, films, to attract anyone from a producer or studio shoring up financing, to a hedge fund, to an individual film buff putting his money where his mouth is. “People love movies, and this is a way for them to profit from what they know,” said Melanie Gordon-Felsman, a Cantor spokeswoman. “Let’s say you love ‘Avatar,’ and you loved ‘Titanic,’ and (director) James Cameron’s coming out with his next movie — so you want to get in the game.”

The contracts are valued at one-millionth of a share of the film’s expected box office in the first four weeks playing, Gordon-Felsman said. If the film earns more than it was calculated to earn, you’re in the money; if not, you’re out — unless of course you shorted the contract.
Investors would own and trade contracts based on Domestic Box Office Receipts up to six months before the underlying film is released.
New York-based Cantor expects to launch the so-called Cantor Exchange in about a month, which would be a couple of weeks after the glitzy Oscar film awards in Los Angeles on March 7. The company expects approval from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission by about April 20, the spokeswoman said.
A Cantor unit also owns the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a virtual entertainment stock market.

 After a weekend devoid of new blockbusters, director James Cameron’s sci-fi epic “Avatar” resumed its long-standing position at the top of the UK box office, according to Screen International on Tuesday.
The world’s biggest-grossing movie made another 2.8 million pounds ($4.36 million) to bring its British total to 83.2 million.
Avatar has spent eight of its 10 weeks in Britain at No.1 but has dropped down to second spot twice, pipped once by Alvin and the Chipmunks late last year and again last week by “Valentine’s Day.”
Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” which slipped two places to fourth last week, was back up at No.2 while Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz in ethereal thriller “The Lovely Bones,” made their debut at three.
“Valentine’s Day”, a star-laden snapshot of a group of Los Angelinos taken one Feb 14, was down in fourth spot, just above “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” in fifth, the tale of a modern high school and ancient Greek gods, with Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman.
Benicio Del Toro as “The Wolfman,” was down three at six with the tale of a Victorian werewolf.
Action movie “Solomon Kane,” with James Purefoy as a 16th century mercenary taking up the sword against evil, was new at seven, while “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” clawed back up a place to eight.
South African movie “Invictus” was down two at nine and robot movie “Astro Boy” was unchanged in 10th place. (RTRS)

James Cameron’s “Avatar” has passed the $200 million box office mark on Imax screens worldwide, the Toronto-based giant-screen firm said Monday. (RTRS)
During its 10th consecutive weekend as the top film at the global box office, the 3D epic grossed $8.2 million from 263 theaters in North America and overseas.
All told, the sci-fi spectacular has earned about $2.63 billion worldwide. (RTRS)

The Canadian government wants more Hollywood stars to work in homegrown movies to boost their negligible box office appeal.
The head of the federal government’s film financier told CBC News that his agency is looking to relax tax rules to allow foreign actors to headline more taxpayer-funded films. One of the two main leads in such projects must be Canadian.
Local films account for about 1 percent of screen time at multiplexes in English-speaking Canada.
“We just can’t go on this way,” said Michel Roy, chairman of Telefilm Canada. “We need to make changes. In order to make those changes we will have to dare to do new things that at times might shock some people.”
ACTRA, Canada’s actors union, slammed the proposed rule changes.
“Using Canadian taxpayers’ money to finance Hollywood is not only wrong, it’s an old idea that’s been tried and proven to fail repeatedly since the ‘70s,” said Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director.”Frankly, I’m not sure that Mr. Roy realizes that a good number of the hottest stars in L.A. right now are Canadian.” (RTRS)