EXCLUSIVE: Regardless of SAG-AFTRA going on strike this week, the studios have no plans to sit down with the Writers Guild for several months.

“I think we’re in for a long strike, and they’re going to let it bleed,” said an industry veteran intimate with the perspective of studio CEOs.

With the scribes’ strike now ending its 71st day and the actors union only 30 hours away from possible industrial action, the Alliance of Film and Television Producers plans to dig hard this fall even before to consider the idea of ​​more talks with the WGA, I have learned. “Not Halloween specifically, but end of October for sure, that’s the intention,” says top producer close to Carol Lombardini’s management AMPTP.

While some dismiss this as just “cynical strike talk,” sources from studios and city streamers back up the strategy. They also confirm that the plan to shrink the guild has long been in the works for a work cycle that all parties believe is one way or another a game changer for Hollywood.

“It’s been agreed for months, even before the WGA came out,” one executive said. “No one wanted a strike, but everyone knew it was decisive.”

RELATED: What Happens to Hollywood (and Beyond) If Actors Go on Strike

Receiving positive feedback from Wall Street from the WGA went on strike on May 2 Warner Bros. Discovery, Apple, netflixAmazon, Disney, Paramount and others have become determined to “break the WGA”, as one studio executive blatantly put it.

To do this, the studios and AMPTP estimate that by October most writers will run out of money after five months on the line and out of work.

“The endgame is to let things drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their homes,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the ice-cold approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. An insider called it a “cruel but necessary evil”.

Studios and streamers then speculate that the cash-strapped writers would go to the WGA leadership and demand they resume talks before what could be a very cold Christmas. In this context, studios and streamers believe they would be able to dictate most of the terms of any eventual deal.

RELATED: SAG-AFTRA Prepares Picket Boards As Strike Looms

The harsh method grew out of the guild’s victorious battle with the agencies in 2021 to dismantle the lucrative practice of packaging. The WGA chose one agency after another until WME finally backed down, a tactic seen as a warning sign by many C-suites studios and streamers.

Convinced that “giving in,” as another insider put it, to the writers will result in every contract cycle of the WGA, IATSE, Teamsters and many others ending in a strike, AMPTP is aiming for the outcome net.

Since the WGA called its first strike in 15 years in early May, there has been no discussion between the AMPTP and the guild despite the guild’s persistent public offers to meet. Sources close to the AMPTP insist there has been no direct offer from the WGA leadership to resume talks.

Yet as picket lines increased and productions were shut down in the first weeks of the strike, studio bosses almost uniformly offered run-of-the-mill praise to writers but no public proposals to get them back to work. . In the meantime, as network schedules shift to unscripted shows and streamers buy foreign content, studios and streamers have been saving money on shuttered productions and cutting costs.

Alongside and reinforcing the AMPTP’s divide and conquer approach, negotiations with the Directors Guild in late May proved successful, with ratification occurring last month. Even if the 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA join the WGA on the picket lines, the studios hope to bring the actors back to the negotiating table in a few weeks.

A new SAG-AFTRA deal wouldn’t see production restart, but it could allow actors to promote projects that are already slated for release. A decision the studios hope would favor the WGA in the latter part of the year.

Neither the AMPTP nor the WGA responded today to Deadline’s request for comment. If or when they do, we’ll update this post.