Another thing to think about is where you are setting your story and what that state's tax incentives package is like... A compelling story that takes place and is written specifically for a place like New Mexico with a nice 25% tax incentive and ABL grants is more compelling to buy than something that has to be based in NYC or Paris. Specific locations while may make a slight difference in your story can make a HUGE difference to the bottom line

One incredibly important component that we're forgetting: Pre-sales! Generally, before a studio shoots any film, they shop the potential product overseas. It costs a pretty penny to snap up the rights to distribute in different countries. This helps fund the movie and in turn, means that your risk is smaller and your profits potentially larger. Also, digital prints will soon be transferred instead of shipped, especially if Fox has their way. Spread that savings across the nation and I'm sure that will cut costs for the studio considerably (while increasing costs to absurd levels for your local Ma and Pop small town theaters).

The box office question is not discussed much because it's not the real driving engine of the business. Like everything in Hollywood "Box Office" reporting and sensationalizing is just another part of the illusion. All that money being circulated around that ultimately returns a marginal profit is merely the cost of doing business. It's all about the licensing. The home video, cable, DVD, streaming, market. That is where the billions of dollars are made regularly. TV also generates massive, massive profits. So if you're coming at this question wondering how studios stay in business with impressively weak box office numbers then that is your answer. Another way to look at this is to ask how movie theaters stay in business. They sell popcorn and candy. Tons of it. But they also share in the box office loot. The thing is the studio gets a far better deal because they argue that by spending all the money to make and market the movie, which then gets people to come buy snacks in droves, they should be entitled to 100% of the box office in opening weekend, 75% on the second, 40% on the third and so on...

The ancillary market should definitely be included in profit estimations. Some movies also do better on DVD/TV then they do at the box office (ie I'm writing a true story right now which I think would do modestly well at the box office and extremely well on DVD/TV due to the event status of the true story + educational aspects). Having said that they never do seem to get counted in budgets for some reason. Probably safest to just design movies to make that x3 back at the box office regardless of ancillary profits.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on Disaster Area: Disaster Area, a plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones, are generally regarded as not only the loudest rock band in the Galaxy, but also as being the loudest noise of any kind at all. Regular concert goers judge that the best sound balance is usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles away from the stage, whilst the musicians themselves play their instruments by remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stays in orbit around the planet - or more frequently around a completely different planet. Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the familiar theme of boy-being meets girl-being beneath silvery moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason. Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band's public address system contravenes local strategic arms limitations treaties. This has not, however, stopped their earnings from pushing back the boundaries of hypermathematics, and their chief research accountant has recently been appointed Professor of Neomathematics at the University of Maximegalon, in recognition of both his General and his Special Theories of Disaster Area Tax Returns, in which he proves that the whole fabric of the space-time continuum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent.