George Walton Lucas Jr. was born on 14 May 1944, in Modesto, California USA, of British, Swiss-German (father) and distant Dutch and French (mother) descent, and is an admired, popular and successful film producer and director, screenwriter, enterpreneur, cinematographer, as well as a television producer. George Lucas is perhaps best known as the creator of the epic space opera franchise “Star Wars”, and the “Indiana Jones” franchise.
So just how rich is George Lucas? George Lucas has valuable assets, such as his home in California, the value of which amounts to $195 million, as well as his other house that costs $700,000. In short, George Lucas’ net worth is estimated to be a remarkable $5.2 billion, the majority of which comes from his directing career.
George Lucas Net Worth $5.2 Billion
George Lucas attended Modesto Junior College, and while there became interested in making films. Lucas then continued his studies at the University of Southern California, where he was inspired by the works of Norman McLaren, Claude Jutra and others. Lucas’ professional career began in the 1960s, when he started writing and producing short films. He obtained a scholarship from Warner Bros to study a film in the making, which turned out to be “Finian’s Rainbow” directed by Francis Ford Coppola. With the latter, Lucas founded American Zoetrope studio, to be independent from the major Hollywood studios, and made his directorial debut in 1971 with a science fiction film called “THX 1138” and even though it initially received mixed to negative reviews, over the years the film began receiving more positive critical reviews. Following his debut, George Lucas came out with “American Graffiti”, a coming of age film starring Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss and Ron Howard. The movie was largely successful and was even nominated for the Academy Award for Directing and Writing. George’s net worth was well on its way!
After that, Lucas followed up with his famous “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” franchises, both of which brought him an immense fame, as well as largely contributed to his $5.2 billion net worth. The first “Star Wars” movie came out in 1977 and became the highest grossing movies of all time. The movie starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher reached new heights of popularity and influenced the release of seven more films in the franchise, with another to be released in late 2015, as well the creation of eight television series and a number of video games.
With three theme parks inspired by “Star Wars”, this movie franchise is considered to be one of the greatest box office successes with more than $4.38 billion grossed worldwide. However, this was not the only successful film franchise created by George Lucas. In 1981, the first movie of the Indiana Jones franchise “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was released to highly positive critical reviews. The film, starring Harrison Ford and Karen Allen, was the highest grossing film of the year and until this day is thought to be one of the greatest action-adventure movies of all time. The franchise inspired the creation of three more films, many comic books, novels, video games, theme parks, as well as a television series, all of which largely contributed to the fame of the main characters and the founder of the “Indiana Jones”.
George Lucas is certainly one of the most acclaimed directors of the modern era, having directed close to 50 films and been involved with nearly 30 TV series’. He has never won an ‘Oscar”, but has Golden Globe, Saturn and Empire Awards, and if success at the box office is anything to go by, then Lucas is right at the top of the list.
However, he is also a noted philanthropist, having created his own Foundation in the early ’90s, encouraging educational innovation, and also signing up the “The Giving Pleadge” organised by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, promising to donate half his wealth to worthy causes.
In his personal life, George Lucas was married to film editor Marcia Griffin(1969-83) – they have an adopted daughter. George has been married to Mellody Hobson since 2013 and they have a daughter. Lucas also adopted a daughter and a son as a single parent. He was known to have a relationship with singer Linda Ronstadt in the 1980s.
