There's a similar story about Star Wars not making a profit, and how that screwed over various actors on the project. Hollywood does this all the time. It's their standard dirty accounting practice.
> According to Lucasfilm, Return of the Jedi, despite having earned $475 million at the box office against a budget of $32.5 million, "has never gone into profit".
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
> According to Lucasfilm, Return of the Jedi, despite having earned $475 million at the box office against a budget of $32.5 million, "has never gone into profit".