Warner Bros. Discovery Takes One-Quarter Loss Larger Than Entire Industry Cost Of WGA Proposal

Look, I freely admit I have absolutely zero business sense and an extremely tenuous grasp of financials (and, uh, math in general). That said, nobody needs a PhD to figure out what’s been obvious right from the beginning. There is simply no scenario where the AMPTP continuing to drag these strikes out for months and months becomes more cost-effective than simply paying what the writers and actors, the lifeblood of the entire industry, genuinely deserve. Here are the numbers to prove it.

Previously, the WGA has helpfully released a handy graphic (seen above) that puts their demands in proper context. When considering the hundreds of billions of dollars that the studios and streamers are raking in on an annual basis, everything that the writers in particular are asking for all but pales in comparison. Should the guild receive every single concession that they’re negotiating for (which almost certainly won’t happen, as any instance of collective bargaining typically requires some level of compromise on both sides, for better or worse), the cost of their proposal wouldn’t even make a dent on the studios’ respective bottom lines — less than 1% combined, in fact.

To put it in even more stark terms, the annual cost of each of the major studios would amount to $330 million total — or around the minimum estimated quarterly loss that Warner Bros. Discovery just reported. In an ideal world where the AMPTP had accepted the WGA’s terms and prevented this prolonged shutdown, they could’ve avoided upwards of half a billion in losses, the suffering of countless below-the-line workers, and untold repercussions of having major upcoming movies and shows delayed indefinitely. But, you know, that would’ve made too much sense, apparently.

Stay tuned to /Film for continuing updates on the strikes.