Another year, another season of Denzel Washington generating all kinds of awards buzz (this time thanks to his stellar performance in The Tragedy of Macbeth, obviously)—oh, and another year of Denzel raking in all kinds of well-deserved cash for his talents. Scroll on down for everything you need to know about Denzel’s very, very large bank account balance and how it got so damn high.
Okay, first thing’s first: what *is* Denzel Washington’s net worth?
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Denzel’s net worth is a whopping $280 million as of the start of 2022. Oh, and he reportedly pulls in a salary of anywhere from $60-$80 million every year, so expect that total to keep on climbing. Now, let’s take a little journey together through how Denzel amassed this full-on fortune.
Well, first of all, he’s been in the biz for decades.
Denzel’s first-ever onscreen gig was way back in 1977, in a TV movie called Wilma and he landed his breakout role on the medical drama St. Elsewhere in 1982. There’s no solid intel on what his St. Elsewhere salary was, exactly, but the series was a six-season hit with 137 episodes/paychecks to slide into Denzel’s bank account.
He started commanding huge paydays in the ’90s.
After his stint on TV in St. Elsewhere, Denzel began his domination of the big screen. His first huge payday came in 1995 for the sci-fi movie Virtuosity (no, don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it). The movie wasn’t a box office smash, but Denzel reportedly took home $7.5 million to star in it and his salary only climbed from there.
Here are just a few highlights from Celebrity Net Worth’s list of his notable paychecks to help illustrate where many of his millions have come from: In 1996, he pulled in $10 million to star in Courage Under Fire and by 1998, he was commanding $12 million for The Siege and Fallen.
And after his Best Actor Oscar win, he joined the $20 million club.
He was still earning $12 million per movie when he made 2001’s Training Day, which earned him his Best Actor Oscar win and his membership card to the $20 Million Club (aka the elite ranks of actors who earn $20 million per movie) for movies like 2003’s Out of Time and 2004’s Man on Fire.
He apparently got paid twice to make American Gangster.
Earning $20 million to make a movie is an achievement, but how many actors could make the $20 million without actually making the movie—and then later make an additional $20 million to make the movie after all. That’s reportedly the story that played out for Denzel when it came to making 2007’s American Gangster. According to The Things, Universal signed Denzel to star in the movie in 2004 when, as we’ve established, the going rate to get Denzel Washington to star in your movie was a cool $20 million. Behind-the-scenes issues eventually led to the movie being cancelled, but Denzel, being the savvy business person he is, had a contract that guaranteed his paycheck whether the movie got made or not.
Flash forward a few years and Universal decided they still wanted to make American Gangster after all and they still wanted Denzel to star in it—which he did, under another contract for another $20 million, technically bringing his total salary for the movie to $40 million.
Oh, and he earned $40 million for The Little Things.
In 2021, Warner Bros. paid Denzel $40 million for his work in The Little Things, according to Variety. The movie was part of the studio’s COVID-driven experiment to make new movies available to stream on HBO Max the same day they premiered in theaters and Variety‘s sources said the $40 million payday for The Little Things was part of a deal Warner Bros. reached with Denzel to “account for diminishing box office in light of streaming premieres,” which implies his original contract for the movie included backend bonuses based on ticket sales.
Denzel has also branched out into directing and producing.
Clearly, Denzel earns *plennnnty* as an actor, but he also has a bit of a side hustle as a director and producer. He made his directorial debut in 2002 with Antwone Fisher and also directed 2007’s The Great Debaters, 2016’s Fences, 2021’s A Journal for Jordan and a 2016 episode of Grey’s Anatomy, just because. When it comes to producing, Denzel has even more experience with 13 credits that include a mix of movies and TV shows.
Source: Read Full Article