What is the cost of a Hollywood movie in "man-years"?  I was wondering
about this when I was watching the endless list of persons in the
credits at the end of a movie recently.  I realize that it will depend
on the movie, but I'd like to know some statistics about this,
together with the actual amount of labor that was needed for some
recent mainstream movies.  If possible I'd like to see the amount of
labor split between production and marketing/distribution.

wondering-ga,

I sincerely doubt statistics of the kind that you are looking can be
found. Your best bet, which actually would not be such a bad idea,
would be to take the budget of the movie (example: 100 million
dollars) and divide this by the average yearly pay of a man
participating in the production (example: 50,000$). Of course not all
the costs of the movie go into paying salaries, but you could argue
that money spent on buying things was actually paid to the people who
were making the things, thus investing their man-years in it. This is
still just an approximation and more precise estimates would require
differentiating the different types of expenses in the movie budget
such as: salaries, equipment, property etc. Also figuring out the
average pay would not be very easy since a good chunk of the budget
(20-30%?) goes towards paying the leading actors, director etc. who
make a LOT of money, whereas most of the rest goes to ordinary workers
doing average work (lighting, sound, technicians etc.) and earning
typical wages. All in all, we are talking about some complicated
statistics which are probably out there in some studio's proprietary
reports...

dannidin

"Gone With the Wind" 
"The preparation period involved 250,000 man hours for the motion
picture. The production period involved 750,000 man hours with
principal photography beginning Jan. 26, 1939 and continuing through
July 1, 1939. 449,512 feet of film was shot, of which 160,000 were
printed. The final running time was 222 minutes. The cast comprised 59
leading and supporting characters, and 2,400 extras. Animal extras
included 1,100 horses, 375 assorted pigs, mules, oxes, cows and dogs.

Horse drawn vehicles, including 450 wagons, ambulances, and gun
caissons were employed. 90 sets were actually built, using 1,000,000
feet of lumber. Wardrobe consisted of .5,500 separate items created at
a cost of $153,818.

The production cost was 3.7 million. The total cost, with added
overheads of prints, publicity and related costs was $4.25 million. On
the world market, the movie has grossed over $120 million to date."
http://www.geocities.com/cactus_st/article/article70.html

OK, so there are about 8760 hours in a year (365 X 24) so the
preparation period involved 250,000 man hours which is 28.53 years and
the production period involved 750,000 man hours which is an
incredible 85.61 years!

Best regards

THX1138

Thx1138, I think you should count a man-year in *working* man-hours. 
I think the DoD officially uses a factor of 1,764 hours/year, from 7
hours/day, 21 days/month, 12 months/year.  Then your 750,000 man-hours
become 425 man-years!

Yes, you are quite right!
Actually I researched your question for quite some time and these were
the only figures that I could come up with, and as your question has
not been answered I suspect the information is not available (on the
internet anyway!)
It was an interesting question though and fun to research.

Best regards

THX1138