Production Cost

You're producing a yarn bracelet using human labor in Indonesia. Production cost? Not much.

You're producing rocket ship engines, or a major feature film? Big production cost.

Things cost what they cost. The presumption runs that smart managers optimize everything, more or less. And then those costs are tracked and packed and accounted for.

A movie that cost $80 million to make has an expected 80% of its costs recouped through its theatrical release? Then by one accounting method, 80% of the costs then get amortized when the release exits theaters. All kinds of chicanery can be had with the books and bookkeeping...but that's why we have GAAP and accountants and all kinds of other inspectors: to be sure profits are really profits and not just the opinings of prophets. Ever see Gandhi? Great film.