> so we have no way to tell if $500M is crazy high or crazy low.

Well, lets take just one of those examples, Minecraft.

Cost apparently $150mil to make, and so far, has earned around $960mil. So if we use the usual doubling of the cost to get to the real cost with marketing and everything, it cost ~$300mil, so that is about $660mil profit.

Now of course that gets split, Xbox wouldn't get 100% of that, but still, even if it got 50%, thats still most of the way to the $500mil they turned down, on just ONE film, and only factoring in the theatrical release profit, not including any money it would have made on merch, or streaming, or anything else.