Do you really think he will LOSE money? Really?
No, it's a matter of: I thought I would net 129 million from this, but with the extra expenses I will only net 27 million. Re-think it to be cheaper boys!
Also, you have to look at it in the big picture. Lucasfilm is a comglomerate studio. When a studio makes a blockbuster, they don't actually make much money off of it. In fact, most of the time they lose money. But they don't just get profit from the boxoffice. Transformers 2 may not bring any profit from the box office, even with its $400 million worldwide receits, but its okay because you have a video game, two action figure lines, a novelization line, an soundtrack album, pez dispensers, t-shirts, posters, trading cards, bubble gum, pepsi tie-ins, mcdonalds happy meals and other material that makes up for it, plus DVD and homevideo. Thats built in to the profit planning from the beginning, and its the reason why studios make these kinds of films. Moreover, you have to look at the bigger picture: even if Transformers 2 is a collosal failure even with all of its anscillary protection, it's just one of ten properties you will have on the marketplace that year. Three or four might fail, three or four might break even, but the one or two successes carries over and so you still end up breaking even or coming out ahead.
Sorry, I don't buy this "he's providing us with entertainment as his personal loss" bullshit. He just realised his profit margins weren't as big as he was used to. He's just cheap. He was the same way on the prequels. Think about how many people are going to CV this year. Every single one of those people will drop between $10-$100 on various products related to this thing. Plus you have all the other non-hardcores, plus all the advertising revenue and network purchasing that will likely pay for the show as it because it is freaking Star Wars.