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Among the specific concerns is that Trend is asking studios or distributors "to provide evidence to support its public boxoffice number when it falls outside the standard deviation level."

More vague concerns also are raised in the letter, including that it places movie industry jobs at risk. The letter even alludes to "abusive practices that triggered our nation's economic crisis," though without specifying how that crisis relates to boxoffice futures.

var sectionNamePath=document.getElementById('sectionBreadcrumb'); var defaultTabPath = sectionNamePath.getElementsByTagName("a")[0].href; if (defaultTabPath.charAt(defaultTabPath.length-1)=="/"){defaultTabPath=defaultTabPath.substring(0, defaultTabPath.length-1);} var lowerTabPath = "null"; defaultTabPath="http://www.latimes.com/business/"; lowerTabPath="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/"; var t=jQuery("#root li a[href="+lowerTabPath+"]"); if(t.length==0){t=jQuery("#root li a[href="+lowerTabPath+"/]");} if(t.length!=0){ t=t.slice(0, 1); t.parent().attr("class", "highlight"); t.parent().parent().attr("class", "level2 subStay"); t.parent().parent().parent().attr("class", "navLink highlight"); } else { t=jQuery("#root li a[href="+defaultTabPath+"]"); if(t.length==0){t=jQuery("#root li a[href="+defaultTabPath+"/]");} if(t.length!=0){ t.parent().attr("class", "navLink highlight"); t.parent().children("ul.level2").attr("class", "level2 subStay"); } } tribHover(); document.getElementById('root').style.visibility = 'visible'; Company TownThe business behind the show « Previous Post | Company Town Home | Next Post » Production plummets in L.A. in 2009 January 14, 2010 |  8:15 am It may have been a banner year at the box office, but 2009 was a complete dud for local film and TV production.

Hardest hit was feature-film production, which had been steadily falling over much of the last decade as L.A. lost jobs to Canada and, increasingly, other states such as New Mexico, Louisiana and Michigan that offer lucrative tax credits and rebates to filmmakers. California's newly adopted film tax credit program helped to blunt the downturn, with production activity increasing by double digits in the second half of the year. About 50 productions have qualified to receive about $100 million in tax credits since the state program debuted this summer

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Furthermore, complaints about releasing data are laughable, because the data is already released, and a virtual trading system has existed for a 13 years without any problems (HSX). Cantor owns HSX, and HSX often predicts movie results more accurately than studio estimates, so the idea that these trading systems are designed around a faulty understanding of the movie industry is laughable. If anything, this is one of the most tested trading systems in the history of this country to ever go live. I cannot think of any other trading system we have that had 13 years of data on before people started trading it for real money.

I have worked in both industries as a futures trader and film producer. The people who criticize this practice don’t understand it. Futures markets where designed to reduce risk, starting with the grain markets a long time ago. If you could lock in a good price for grain and didn’t know what the future would be, but you knew what your costs were, you could lock in a profit while speculators could take on that risk. It’s a great idea for the film biz. There will be fewer box office disasters and more films greenlit because of the influx of investor dollars. Those who don’t want it are nervous that their accounting practices will be scrutinized and they SHOULD be nervous. I say bring this thing on!!