George Lucas is an American film producer, screenwriter, director, and entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of $7.3 billion. He founded Lucas Film Limited and led the company as chairman and CEO before selling it to The Walt Disney Company.
George Walton Lucas was born on May 14, 1944 in Modesto Country, California. He was the son of Dorothy and George Lucas, who owned a stationary store. Lucas became interested in film at a very young age taking in pictures whenever he could. It wasn’t until college did he really start to set the wheels in motion. It was at the University of Southern California where he met his future Indiana Jones collaborator Steven Spielberg.
At USC Lucas created his first film: Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB. It was eventually made into a full-length feature film titled simply THX 1138. The movie itself wasn’t successful, but lead to a more successful venture with American Graffiti, which received 5 Academy Award nominations and earned $115 million in domestic revenue.
Lucas is and will be forever known for his Star Wars franchise. The epic space opera first released in May of 1977 eventually lead to six films in total and one of the biggest cult followings in the history of film. The franchise has earned close to $10 billion in worldwide revenue making it the second most successful movie franchise in the history of cinema behind James Bond.
Lucas himself has only directed six films. He’s acted as a producer, executive producer or writer on several other films including the Indiana Jones franchise. Star Wars is the key piece to Lucas’ net worth but he has founded companies such as THX, Skywalker Sound, Industrial Light and Magic and LucasArts as subdivisions of Lucasfilms Ltd.
Lucas is also an active philanthropist. In 1991, The George Lucas Educational Foundation was founded as a nonprofit to celebrate and encourage innovation in schools. In 2005, Lucas donated $1 million to help build the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. In 2006, Lucas announced that he donated $175-$180 million to the University of Southern California film school. The donation became the largest gift to any film school ever.
In one of the biggest deals in the history of cinema, Lucas decided to sell Lucasfilm to Disney for a whopping $4 billion. At the time, Lucas’ net worth was around $3.3 billion and as 100% owner of the company he more than doubled that amount to $7.3 billion. He is widely regarded as one of the most financially successful film makers in the history of cinema. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006, he’s won Academy Awards, and he was named one of the ‘100 Greatest Americans’ by the Discovery Channel.
Lucas seems to be winding his career down so don’t expect to see some more billion dollar transactions with his named tied to it. Then again, Lucas has defied odds in the past so who knows – anything is possible with this pioneer of cinema.
