George Lucas net worth
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What is the net worth of George Lucas?
George Lucas is a director, writer, producer and businessman with a net worth of US$10 billion. He is best known for creating Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, which have generated more than $12 billion in global box office revenue. He is also the founder of production company Lucasfilm and technical effects company Industrial Light and Magic.
George Lucas’ net worth of US$10 billion makes him by far the richest celebrity, the richest director, and the richest person in the entertainment industry.
Lucas is a signatory of the charity “Donation Pledge”, indicating that he intends to donate at least half of his wealth to charity upon or at the time of his death.
Disney sale
In 2012, George sold the Star Wars franchise to Disney for $4 billion in cash and stock. Lucas received US$2.21 billion in cash and 37 million shares (37,076,679 shares) of stock, which was trading at approximately US$50 at the time. Therefore, when the transaction was completed, he acquired Disney shares worth 1.85 billion U.S. dollars. With his number of shares and Disney’s half-year dividend of US$0.88, Lucas earns about US$64 million in dividends per year.
In March 2021, with Disney’s share price approaching US$200, the value of these 37 million shares has increased to US$7.4 billion.
Early life and career
On May 14, 1944, George Lucas (George Lucas) was born and raised in Modesto, California. At first, his goal was a racing career, but he had a fatal accident in high school. After a driver criticized him, Lucas’ interests changed a lot. Lucas’ father owns a stationery store and hopes that George will work for him after graduating from high school. However, George wanted to go to art school and announced when he left home that he was determined to become a millionaire at the age of 30.
While at Modesto Junior College, Lucas was passionate about photography and filmmaking. He started when he was young: shooting racing cars and other lenses with an 8mm camera. He eventually transferred to the University of Southern California, where he became friends with filmmaker Steven Spielberg and received honors during his graduate studies, including a student scholarship to Warner Bros. His 1967 student film “Electronic Maze: THX 1138 4EB” was eventually made into the first full-length feature film THX 1138 in 1971. Award nominations and domestic revenue alone reached 115 million U.S. dollars, and global revenue was 140 million U.S. dollars. Since the film’s production budget is $777,000, American Graffiti is considered one of the most profitable films in history.
Star wars
It is his next movie that will become a more popular movie and make Lucas a Hollywood movie legend. The filming budget of “Star Wars” was 11 million U.S. dollars and became a global phenomenon when it was released in 1977. In a few decades, Lucas will spend $15 million on restoration costs for the film’s re-release. “Star Wars” spawned two sequels in the early 1980s, they also achieved great success, and continued to build the “Star Wars” universe.
Lucas directed further Star Wars trilogy in the late 1990s and early 2000s, focusing on events prior to the original film. The most recent sequel trilogy-and spin-off movies and series-appeared after Lucas sold the rights to Disney. The epic Star Wars franchise, its global revenue has exceeded 12 billion U.S. dollars, and continues to attract viewers to this day.
Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images
Other movies and venture capital
Although he has directed only six films in total, Lucas has served as the producer, executive producer and screenwriter of many films. Some of his greater successes include Body Heat (1981), Labyrinth (1986), Land Before Time (1988) and the Indiana Jones film franchise.
It was the latter that made him once again attract the imagination of fans with another epic film franchise. In the Indiana Jones movie, Lucas once again collaborated with Star Wars actor Harrison Ford to create another iconic character. With him as the director is Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg. The resulting movie box office revenue is close to 2 billion U.S. dollars.
In addition, Lucas founded THX, Skywalker Sound, Industrial Light and Magic and LucasArts as subsidiaries of its parent company Lucasfilm Ltd.. Enhance the audience experience.
honor
In 2005, Lucas received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Film Institute. He was nominated for four Oscars: Best Director and Screenwriter for American Graffiti and Star Wars. In 1991, he received the Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006, and this is the second film, television and media writer after Spielberg. In 2013, Lucas received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama. In recognition of his contribution to American cinema. Lucas was selected as a Disney Legend in August 2015, and later that year, he became the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honor Award.
Why is George Lucas so rich?
It all boils down to an extremely wise business decision he made when negotiating the salary of the first “Star Wars” in 1973. After the incredible success of American Graffiti, Lucas is entitled to a salary of $500,000 for his next film. This is a significant increase from the $150,000 he earned from Graffiti. Instead of accepting the nearly 300% salary increase, George made a suggestion to the Fox executives.George generously offered to keep his salary at $150,000 in exchange for two Seemingly trivial requirements: #1) He retains all sales rights, and #2) He will retain the rights to any sequel. Fox executives are very excited about this proposal, believing that George’s space movie is just a short-lived flash on the entertainment radar. Obviously, this is a very bad deal for Fox, arguably the greatest film contract in George’s history. By 2012, “Star Wars” merchandise sales were 20 billion U.S. dollars, and home entertainment sales were 4 billion U.S. dollars.
On October 30, 2012, George Lucas announced that he had signed an agreement to sell his entire Lucasfilm company to Disney for a staggering $4.1 billion in cash and stock. Lucas owns 100% of the company’s shares, which means that all 4 billion dollars are in his pocket. Overnight, his net worth more than doubled, from 3.3 billion U.S. dollars to 7.3 billion U.S. dollars!
Charity
Because of his huge charitable efforts, George’s net worth today is slightly lower. He eventually plans to donate most of his net assets to charities that mainly focus on education. Today, his foundation controls more than $1 billion in funds. He has donated millions of dollars to the cause of supporting cancer research and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He has donated more than $175 million to his alma mater, the University of Southern California. Even after donating billions of dollars to charity, George Lucas could easily become the richest celebrity on the planet.
personal life
From 1969 to 1983, Lucas married the film editor Marcia Lou Griffin (who won an Oscar for editing the original “Star Wars”). They adopted a daughter, Amanda Lucas, in 1981. As a single parent, Lucas adopted two more children-Katie Lucas (born in 1988) and Jet Lucas (born in 1993). All three of his children appear in three Star Wars prequels. Lucas also dated singer Linda Ronstadt in the 80s. Lucas married Melody Hobson (Chairman of DreamWorks Animation) in 2013 after dating for 7 years. They got married at Skywaker Ranch in Lucas. In 2013, they gave birth to a daughter through surrogacy.
Real estate assets
George’s largest real estate asset is the nearly 6,000 acre Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California. He bought the ranch in 1978 and spent more than $100 million to transform it into a private residence, a movie studio, a retreat and a theater that can accommodate 300 people. The property also has 50,000 square feet of private residence, multiple swimming pools, tennis courts, etc.Lucas has placed approximately 5,000 acres in a permanent conservation easement on the Marin County Agricultural Land Map
In 2017, he bought a 9,000-square-foot home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles for $33.9 million.
In 2010, he spent $19.5 million to purchase a beach house in Carpinteria, California (south of Santa Barbara). He demolished the existing house and built a larger Cape Cod house on the property. In December 2019, George bought the house next door for $28 million. The house next door was formerly owned by a woman named Frances Morehart, who died in 2018 at the age of 93. His newly merged waterfront footprint in Carpinteria exceeds 3 acres.
