The head of a new exchange fighting to keep Congress from halting his plans to list movie futures is offering  an advisory board seat to the head of the Hollywood opposition. 

Robert Swagger, chief executive of the Trend Exchange, discussed the idea in Washington this week when he met with the lawmakers negotiating a final financial regulatory bill. 

Though the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has given the exchange the green light to start listing futures products tied to box-office receipts, many members of Congress say it wouldn’t be a true hedge and could be a gambling tool. They inserted a provision in the financial bill that would make movie futures illegal. 

The Motion Picture Association of America also opposes the movie futures.

 Swagger said in an interview Friday that if and when the Motion Picture Association of America gets a new chief executive, “We’d like to reach out to that person and offer an advisory board position so we can be sure we are building the best products to help its constituents.” 

However, Swagger said he wouldn’t extend the position to the MPAA’s  interim chief executive, Bob Pisano. The MPAA has hired a firm to search for a permanent replacement since its former chief executive departed in January, and news reports recently suggested that former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey could be tapped for the spot. 

A spokesman for the MPAA declined to comment on the reports and on Swagger’s proposal. 

Many believe the language in the bill banning movie futures would effectively kill Trend Exchange’s plans along with the plans of Cantor Fitzgerald’s Cantor Exchange, which is awaiting final approval from the CFTC to list movie futures. 

But Swagger said he believes his company will be protected if Congress passes the bill with the ban. 

“We don’t think what has been put in place is necessarily constitutional, and we think there are several grounds we can fight on,” he said.

 He declined to say which lawmakers he met with but noted he’s focusing on Democrat and Republican members of the conference committee negotiating the final bill. 

He said the meetings have gone well, though there has been no breakthrough.

He added that he had planned to launch Trend Exchange at the end of the third quarter, but may try to accelerate that by 30-60 days given the political environment.