The British film industry revolves around America’s. The dependence is startling just in money terms: of the nearly £2 billion (about $2.6 billion) spent in film and television production in Britain in 2022, US studio-backed projects totalled $1.36 billion — a 31 per cent increase from 2021, according to the British Film Institute. Think of it another way: that rhapsody-in-pink Barbie Land set in last weekend’s blockbuster hit? It was built in the Warner Bros Studios in Leavesden, just north of London.

So, with Tinsel Town USA shut down by the dual strike by actors and writers, Hollywood-on-the-Thames has sputtered to a stop, too. The knock-on effects are huge: there are more than 16,000 UK film and TV production companies, mostly small businesses, that in 2020 employed 86,000 people. While British actors have their own union — Equity — many work in productions shut down by walkouts staged by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Actors.

You can sense the anxiety when asking film folks here about their American cousins. “We’re hoping the parties resolve their differences soon,” said a spokesman for Film London, which works with movie companies to set up shoots in the city. Equity is loudly supportive of the strike but reminds members that it is illegal to walk out in sympathy from British productions that have no investment from studios that are part of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the US trade association at loggerheads with the writers and actors unions.

But the calamity also raises a tempting opportunity. Should Britain’s skilled film artisans — from actors and writers unaffiliated with the American unions to the craftsmen and technicians who build and film extravaganzas such as Barbie — initiate independent productions that they can sell to US studios that may soon be content-starved? That kind of self-starting could help break British dependence on Hollywood financing — and US cinematic visions — and revive an industry that once rivalled America’s. Indeed, if there’s one place where Britain’s soft power has real potency, it is in the Anglophilic offices of the big Hollywood studios.

At this point, however, the British are not up for the strikebreaker role. Everyone here simply says they hope it all blows over fast. At least in public.

But there’s talking going on. American producers have not really been quiet. They were scouting for fresh sources even before the 160,000-member actors guild joined the WGA strike on July 14. The streaming companies know that overseas productions without big US studio money can come up with gigantic hits — think South Korea and Squid Game. “Believe me, all conversations are happening,” says one Hollywood insider who asked not to be named because of the sensitivities surrounding the strike. “They’ve been happening in preparation for all this.”

An old-style Hollywood deal is also getting new traction — the so-called “negative pick-up”. It’s one where no money exchanges hands until a movie or show is finished. The term originated in the period before digital, when the medium was really film, that is, celluloid — and moviemakers delivered the film negative to the studios. While the film-makers got no money from the studio, a “negative pick-up” in the past was enough to convince a bank to offer financing — the contract being an effective promissory note of money to come once the project was completed. The big studios usually promise to cover all costs and take on distribution — and, of course, the enormous proceeds from that.

That is all sotto voce for now — especially in Britain, where no one wants to damage existing relations with SAG-AFTRA. There is already criticism of potential “backdoor” use of London to circumvent the strike. If it ends soon, the damage will be limited. But the economic pressure on British film businesses will grow as the US face-off goes on.

Hollywood insiders do not expect any movement in negotiations until after US Labor Day weekend in September, the unofficial beginning of the American autumn. Why then? It has little to do with producing fresh content. It’s about maximising the movies already in the pipeline. The autumn kicks off Hollywood’s awards season, when the studios roll out their biggest and most prestigious films. The producers will need the directors, writers and especially the actors who created those movies to promote them — and to juice the box office.

What’s the point of the Oscars if the statuettes don’t help you sell tickets? After all, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences — which gives out the annual prize — was set up by a studio chief, Louis B. Meyer, the founder of MGM. One raison d'être: to circumvent unions by coddling actors with gilded trophies. It would be ironic if the awards got producers and actors back to the negotiating table.

It will be really bad news if the AMPTP decides to sacrifice the awards season. That means the standoff will become a war of attrition. But maybe then, the British film industry may just decide it’s time to strike out on its own.

• Howard Chua-Eoan is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion covering culture and business. He previously served as Bloomberg Opinion’s international editor and is a former news director at Time magazine