Box Office Grosses aren't the final story for most films... The actual money a studio makes depends on an assortment of factors and costs. Deadline Hollywood has looked at comparable pictures and made their projections on the kind of money Batman V. Superman will ultimately make at the global box office, and then analysed the various other revenue streams for the film itself and subtracted all of the assorted costs.
In the end, they estimate that the film will gross $925m at the Worldwide box office, of which WB will pocket $411m. Unfortunately, they estimate that the production costs are $250m, with worldwide release costs of $165m, for a total of $415... just a few million more than it would actually earn in theaters.
However, that's not the only source of income for a film. Deadline estimates that Batman V. Superman can expect to earn $260m in global home entertainment sales and rentals, and another $135m in global television deals, for a total of $395m in extra income. Of course, these releases have their own costs of $91m, and in the end they estimate another $92m will go to those with profit participation deals in their contracts, like the director, producers, stars and the like.
So what's the ultimate profit the film could be looking at when all is said and done? $207.9m
(Check out the full breakdown of the numbers at the source.)
Here's how that projected (*) amount would compare with the profits from recent Superhero films estimated by the folks at Deadline:
Iron Man 3 - $391.8m
Avengers Age of Ultron - $382.3m
Batman V. Superman - $207.9m*
Guardians of the Galaxy - $204.2m
Big Hero 6 - $187.3m
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - $166.2m
Thor The Dark World - $139.4m
Ant-Man - $103.9m
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - $81.31m
X-men Days of Future Past - $77.4m
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - $70.4m
Man of Steel - $42.7m
That puts it neck and neck with Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy in terms of profitability. However, the big winner of the year so far is looking to be Fox's Deadpool, which is currently at the same worldwide gross as that earned by X-men Days of Future Past, yet cost $140m less to produce and likely wasn't saddled with anywhere near the estimated $100m in profits paid out to Singer, Hugh Jackman and the rest of the returning cast members of that film. The profits of Deadpool could be well over $300m at this point as a result.