And yet people pay $5 to watch a movie that cost $100 million to shoot. Surely the AAA game is overpriced?

you are missing the point. (proving yourself wrong?)

that movie has tons of AAA-grade creatives, AAA-grade actors, tens of thousands of people work, brand new music, licenced music, photos, drawings, videos, animations and motion graphics, 3D assets, pictures, photos, whole buildings and set built for this, that borderline tiny real towns. LotR had to develop brand new state-of-the-art VFX rendering tech, which is often the case with such projects.

VFX for say "fake" UI Iron Man suit, had to write tons of code to make it work. amount of work those movies and games take in creatives (very often it is just code) is unbelievable.

now, with this utility app. what did it produce? not even close.

I watch the movie and it's over in an hour. I use this app and I can improve my workflow for a year. Which one is worth it?

say I start charging you 40 USD for clothes you have bought from someone else, you are washing yourself, reparing, and other people made, using their own tools and materials. I did close to nothing, and yet "you will be wearing it for a year". great, but that does not mean there is no ripoff from my part. I have close to nothing to do with your clothes, even if they are obviously useful to you for next year.

same story here. marginal contribution is too low compared to price

you can pay for it 1000 USD too, nobody stops you

but that does not mean it is "worth it". as in, marginal contribution and work people did to make it happen. banana duck-taped to a wall, same story.