That doesn't smell right especially with how CGI can save the costs of dozen's of movie sets.
The same stuff is happening in all industries. They save $1 because of budget cost, computer or AI generation, or off-loading some work to cheap countries like India, but then they multiply the marketing or other external cost by x10 the amount they saved.
In video games, even like 10 years ago, actual development was only like 20% of the actual cost of the game, the rest was management/marketing/etc. The ratio is probably higher nowadays.
The same stuff is happening in all industries. They save $1 because of budget cost, computer or AI generation, or off-loading some work to cheap countries like India, but then they multiply the marketing or other external cost by x10 the amount they saved.
In video games, even like 10 years ago, actual development was only like 20% of the actual cost of the game, the rest was management/marketing/etc. The ratio is probably higher nowadays.