With Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2 placing financial trading back in Hollywood's crosshairs, it is perhaps fitting that the film industry is itself set to become a target for the money men. The US authorities yesterday approved the creation of the first futures market based on movie box office results, a move that has aroused fear among the studios about traders speculating on the financial success of films.

The new market was approved by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA), which represents the major studios, has long opposed such a move, arguing that it may hurt the performance of films as traders begin looking for ways to manipulate a movie's opening. It has called for a ban on such practices.

In a statement, the MPAA said movie futures speculation was "no more than over-under bets on a movie's performance". They added: "It is unfortunate the CFTC has now given the go-ahead to a new gambling platform that could be plagued by financial irregularities and manipulation."

However, proponent Robert Swagger told the Hollywood Reporter that the MPAA was trying to suppress small business initiatives at a time of economic troubles.

"We know the MPAA will stop at nothing," he said. "They are a huge special interest group. They don't have to use this product, but there are a lot of other people who can and who will benefit from it.

"The MPAA can't accept the fact that the regulatory body, the CFTC, has read through everything, that we worked with them for over a year, and they concluded these products do fall under their domain – that they can't be manipulated, that they are a commodity."

The new futures contracts will commence trading four weeks before a movie opens and end trading as it enters its opening weekend. The first movie to enter the market may be crime thriller Takers, which arrives in US cinemas on 20 August.

Futures markets were initially set up to allow traders to "hedge" against the possible future performances of companies, a move which helped to reduce uncomfortable spikes in economic results.