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From what I've seen, the idea is that they have such debts, they need the $30 million write-off now even if the movie cost $70 million to make.
I have no idea if that's true or not, but that's the explanation I've seen for it. The $70 mil has already been spent a couple of years back; the $30 mil will reduce their debt repayments (or whatever it is) right now. They've offset the tax against their recent Q3 earnings, so they've got the benefit of that.
There's a thread here discussing what is going on; basically the movie cost somewhere around $70 million to make. Okay. But if they release it, they need to spend as much again on marketing, and then the cinemas take their bite of the profits, and so on. So they'd need to make about $170 million to break even, and even if they do that, that return is spread out over the next financial year. Meanwhile, they have to pay taxes etc. on their earnings now, so taking the write-off makes more financial sense.
I dunno, I'm not an accountant or an economist 🤷♀️ But this Variety article from March of this year say Warner Studios (or whatever name they're going by this minute) are drowning in debt:
It has $45 billion in debt, and if I go by this breakdown, its assets don't cover its liabilities in the short term.
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