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Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount Global gained 3% each,
Netflix rose marginally, while Walt Disney jumped 4%, as it also
benefited from strong earnings and a plan to cut more costs.
The 118-day work stoppage by actors officially ended just after
midnight with a three-year deal that the SAG-AFTRA union said
was valued at more than $1 billion and included increases in
minimum salaries and a new bonus paid by streamers.
The writers, who had gone on strike before the actors in spring,
returned to work in late September, but most productions
remained halted as the actors were on picket lines.
"Its certainly a very encouraging sign the chasm that opened up
between actors, writers and studios can finally be closed and
work begin in earnest on re-starting productions," said Susannah
Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown.
The actors union's national board will on Friday consider the
agreement, which also includes protections against unauthorized
use of images generated by AI, and a final ratification vote is
expected in the coming weeks.
Streeter warned that "it's going to take considerable time
before new movies, in particular, will appear on screens given
the lengthy post-production process."
Warner Bros Discovery executives said on Wednesday they expected
the impact from the work stoppages to extend into the last
quarter of the year, after a lack of content drove a drop in
streaming subscriber numbers in the third quarter.
The company, which delayed the release of "Dune: Part 2" from
November to March next year, expects a hit of "a few hundred
million dollars" to its core profit in the last three months of
the year from the strikes.
(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by
Shinjini Ganguli)
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