Being able to bet on whether a movie makes money or ends up a box office flop inched a step closer to reality on Thursday after a second company in the film business applied to US regulators to set up a “movie derivatives” exchange.

The US futures regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, submitted for public comment an application by Veriana Networks, a privately owned, Delaware-registered company to operate Media Derivatives (MDEX) as an “electronic exchange for contracts based on box office movie revenues”.