June
12, 1999
Web
posted at: 7:55 PM EDT (2355 GMT)
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Getting your first two million bucks is easy. The next step, deciding whether to use it to buy part of Mike "Yeah, Baby!" Myers or the upcoming lusty thriller "Eyes Wide Shut," requires a little savvy.
The online Hollywood Stock Exchange -- www.hsx.com -- is only a game. Players trade MovieStocks or StarBonds in celebrities and movies the way real investors swap shares of Microsoft or Boeing.
But with thousands of people playing, the creators of HSX are promoting it as a high-tech way for the entertainment industry to sample public opinion -- and some studio officials acknowledge that they're taking notice.
With a simple point and click of the mouse, a player can buy a bit of Cameron Diaz; her latest movie, "Any Given Sunday;" or her director, Oliver Stone. MovieStocks or StarBonds are purchased with "Hollywood Dollars" -- designated by the symbol H$ -- the online equivalent of "Monopoly" money.
Once you register, for free, your account is credited with H$2 million to invest in the market. Profits can be exchanged for prizes.
Since the prices of the StarBonds and MovieStocks are based on the law of supply and demand among players, an issue's popularity could reflect future box-office returns, according to Max Kaiser, a former stockbroker who co-founded the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
"It's like reading Entertainment Weekly a year in advance," he said from HSX's Santa Monica headquarters. "We not only trade movies that are in release, we have ones that are in currently in production or are just concepts getting kicked around Hollywood."
Studio heads could tell whether fans are interested in a remake of "Shaft" or another sequel to "Jurassic Park" by checking the popularity of their respective stocks, he said.
Gordon Paddison, an interactive marketing director with New Line Cinema, said he monitors response to the studio's "Austin Powers" sequel and upcoming "Lord of the Rings" films on HSX because the movies are targeted for the type of 17- to 24-year-old male audience the site attracts.
"If the buzz was low on HSX would I draft a memo to the studio head saying, 'We've got to pull this picture?' No. But I could do an advertising buy online," Paddison said.
HSX's online chat rooms carry around-the-clock rumors on casting and concepts, and that can boost or break StarBonds and MovieStocks depending on whether fans like what they hear.
When chatter arose that Jim Carrey might appear in a film version of the old television series "Get Smart," a flood of buyers drove the stock from H$10 per share to H$60. The bubble burst and the stock plunged to H$20 after the murmurs proved bogus.
While fans appear eager to see Carrey walk in Maxwell Smart's shoe-phones, they balk at the idea of Leonardo DiCaprio in Darth Vader's black boots. The bottom dropped out of the next two "Star Wars" prequels about the time unconfirmed reports circulated that DiCaprio was negotiating to play the 20-something Anakin Skywalker.
Traders' whims also commonly inflate the market on expected blockbusters that flop, triggering setbacks such as the great "Godzilla" crash of 1998.
"We lost about 18 billion Hollywood dollars after that non-opening," Kaiser said.
Similar disasters could result when traders flock to hyper-anticipated pictures they know little about.
For example, the late Stanley Kubrick's secrecy-shrouded "Eyes Wide Shut" is trading highly at H$68, but investors could take a bath if the on-screen chemistry between married co-stars Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise fizzles.
And Mike Myers' StarBond is valued at H$2,502 on the chance that "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" might knock "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" from atop the box office.
Of course, the only genuine key to success on the volatile HSX market is a familiar aphorism -- "buy low, sell high."
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