Brad Pitt has the classic Hollywood come-up story: he’s a Midwestern kid from Springfield, MO who chased his dreams to the city of angels and made it big in the movies. It’s something straight out of...well, a movie.
Pitt is now an icon and — barring any crazy plot twists — is set to take home an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor this weekend, further solidifying his place in Hollywood history. His icon status comes with the bank account to match, too: Pitt is worth $300 million USD, according to reports collected by Celebrity Net Worth.
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His financial come-up is just as interesting as his professional one. Pitt’s breakout film role as J.D. in 1991’s Thelma & Louise only netted him $6,000 USD. But that performance landed him in the Academy Award-winning film A River Runs Through It in 1992, and he starred in Kalifornia for $500,000 USD in 1993.
It was only up from there. Pitt earned $4 million USD for Se7en, $10 million USD for Sleepers and Seven Years in Tibet each, and established a base salary of $17.5 million USD by the late ‘90s. Pitt was a cool millionaire by the time he took starring roles in Meet Joe Black, Fight Club, Spy Game, Troy, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He took a pay cut for his appearances in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood, making $10 million USD apiece — but that’s not a bad trade, considering how his role in the latter has all but guaranteed his first Oscar win for acting.
Pitt has been nominated at the Oscars seven times. He won once in 2014, taking home a trophy for Best Picture as a producer for 12 Years A Slave. That’s arguably how he’s making most of his money in Hollywood nowadays. Pitt founded his production company, Plan B Entertainment, with his now-ex-wife Jennifer Aniston in 2001 (he bought out her stake in the company when they split up). Plan B has backed heavyweight films including The Departed, Moneyball, Moonlight, and The Big Sick, not to mention box office hits including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Eat, Pray, Love. Plan B currently has deals inked with Annapurna Pictures and Amazon Studios, Deadline reports, so there’s little question that Pitt’s role as a producer is likely one of his highest-paying yet.
Outside of the movies, roughly a third of Pitt’s fortune comes from his real estate portfolio, which is valued at about $100 million USD and consists of a compound in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz neighbourhood, a Santa Barbara beach house, a New Orleans mansion, a villa in Majorca, and Chateau Miraval, a 1,200-acre winery in the south of France, which he co-owns with his former wife Angelina Jolie.
Pitt is an active philanthropist, as well. He founded the Make It Right Foundation, a nonprofit helping rebuild homes affected by Hurricane Katrina, in 2007. With Jolie, Pitt also established the Jolie-Pitt Foundation in 2006, which donates to humanitarian causes around the world.