👉 Background: It all began on May 2, 2023, when the Writers Guild of America announced that they'll be going on strike. And then on July 13th this year, the SAG-AFTRA union also went on strike. That meant Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy, and Emily Blunt literally walked out of premiere of Oppenheimer.

👉 What happened: Now, the Guild has come to a tentative agreement with the Hollywood studios after their demands were met:

• An increase in compensation for streaming content
• Minimum staffing for TV shows
• Guarantees that AI won't enroach on writers' credits and compensation

👉 What else: With this agreement, it means that some productions, like late night shows, could start immediately, However, SAG-AFTRA and all its 100,000 members are still on strike and this has become extremely costly.

What's the key learning?

💡Strikes can be like a wrecking ball to an industry because they not only cause disruptions to the studios, but also across the entire Hollywood ecosystem.

💡In fact, the Californian economy has lost more than $5 billion USD already. But that's not all. Since the SAG-AFTRA strike, the share price of many studios have taken a hit:

• Warner Bros. Discovery's share price declined by nearly 23%.
• Netflix's share price declined by over 14%.
• Paramount Global's share price dropped by nearly 25%.

💡So Hollywood studios and their investors will hope that the deal with the writers guild could speed up negotiations with the actors' union too.

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