That's pretty much the standard news story on the opening day of every big budget movie now - an estimate of the "reported production budget" with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in, and ominous notes about how much the film will have to clear to break even.
A fair amount of that info is fed by competing studios.
Such information is not always reliable. Studios inflate production costs (e.g., tax loopholes, avoiding paying percentage points). There are a lot of successful films that have technically reported losses.
Also, budget reports amount to a bit of puffery on the part of marketers. Low-budget movies tend to have less impressive visuals and well-known actors. High-budget films promise, if nothing else, exciting visual effects and familiar faces. Putting production costs out there is a way of signaling to the audience that they're in for a spectacle and more or less competent film-making (e.g., lighting, sound-design, camera work, sfx).
The stakes these days are undoubtedly high.
Avatar was reported to cost what? Half a billion to make? We're in an age where the thudding heuristic thinking of "more is better" has pushed studios into an arms race where just a few glaring failures can bankrupt a production house.
Remember Carolco? Players like Lucas and Spielberg don't think the arms race is sustainable and have predicted an implosion of the system as we know it. Meanwhile, theaters are running on thin margins, studios are relying on gimmicks like IMAX and 3D to try to keep people spending money, and alternatives like Netflix and HULU and a renaissance in quality TV (e.g., Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones) are becoming more enticing the larger and cheaper home theaters get and the more powerful personal electronic devices become.
But why would studios be ruled by the metric of "more is better" if it wasn't the best way to go? Well, studio heads are people, and they cue off heuristics just like everyone else. The economist's favorite fiction is the "rational world actor" who reliable and intelligently spends money in his/her own self-interest. Studio bosses, however, aren't any more rational than anyone else. They ride hunches, do favors, support pet projects, and rationalize bad decisions.
The result is high stakes mediocrity.
Remarkably enough, the movies that then go on to do big box office are considered successes by the studios and distributors and sequels get made.
Oh, it's not just the never ending sequels, but also copy-cats, prequels, and reboots. And is this because $$$ = quality? No, it's because $ = $ and our "magic makers" are clumsily chasing every buck they can pocket.
It's almost as if the people with access to the real numbers know something that reporters and Internet chatterboxes don't...
We all know that films that make big box office get sequels made (this is done because Hollywood plays it safe, because they don't really know what works, so they just throw more money at what worked last time).
