[tzs]

Lets do a quick back of the envelope guesstimate. Around 450 people worked on WALL-E. These movies take years to make, but I'd guess that many of those people are only in on part of it, so I'll guess that at any given time, only 1/4 of those people are working on it. Figure that an employee costs $100k per year in pay, benefits, and overhead (I expect that is a low estimate on average). That gives $11 million per year, just for having the necessary employees. I believe these movies take about 4 years, so that brings WALL-E to an estimated $44 million, just for employees.

I suspect I underestimated pay, but I may have overestimated the fraction of that 450 working at any given time. Anyone in the industry reading this who can give better data?

Now throw in equipment, facilities, promotion, and so on, and it is not hard to believe pretty big legitimate budgets.