US firm Media Derivatives claims it will pip rival Cantor Fitzgerald to launch the first electronic futures exchange for trading movie box office receipt contracts.
The firm says it expects to receive regulatory approval for its Trend Exchange from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) by 24 March.
Cantor Fitzgerald recently said it expects to get approval for its Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) in April.
Unlike Cantor's platform, the Trend Exchange will target institutional investors and is pitched as a way of providing film producers a new way of managing risk. Clearing will go through the Minneapolis Grain Exchange.
TrendEx is being funded by investment outfit Veriana, which claims "prominent members of the entertainment and financial services industries" among its directors and advisors.
Robert Swagger, CEO, Trend Exchange, says: "By offering speculators and hedgers a market-based solution to transfer the considerable financial risks associated with major movie productions, The Trend Exchange will perform the same public service that futures exchanges have been providing to commercial users for nearly two hundred years."