Kong outroaring Narnia's lion king

King Kong will outmuscle Narnia at the US box office, if punters trading mock "shares" in the films on the Hollywood Stock Exchange can be believed.

Bidding for shares with fake Hollywood dollars, traders on the HSX are piling in behind Peter Jackson's remake of the classic B-movie, due to open in the US on Wednesday.

While the US-based exchange is a game - traders compete to move up a leader board based on the "value" of their portfolio of movie stocks - experience has shown them to be reliable forecasters of the real takings.

Movements on the HSX are of growing importance to analysts and investors seeking data to forecast potential ticket sales, and trading in the real shares of the entertainment companies behind the movies.

Last week HSX traders drove King Kong shares to an all-time high of H$207.77, meaning they expect the film to make almost US$207 million in its first four weeks of wide release in the US.

In contrast, Narnia shares were back from their all-time high of H$179.84, to trade at H$167.87 on their last day ahead of the movie's opening in the US at the weekend.

A share price of more than H$242 last week suggests Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the movie for King Kong to beat.

After a movie opens, as the Harry Potter movie did last month in the US, its share price began to reflect the actual box office take.