Are there any actors who have made so much money from a film, that they were able to live off the continuous royalties?

 

The classic example is Alec Guinness. Never a fan of Star Wars, even while making the original film, his royalties from it still made him staggeringly wealthy.

The agreement he ended up signing entitled him to 2.25% of the film’s gross in royalties.

Sound like a pittance?

Come on, this is Star Wars we’re talking about. 2.25% of an ungodly fortune is still an ungodly fortune.

Numbers like these always get messy due to disputes in Hollywood accounting and how precisely to figure out royalty agreements, but:

Star Wars grossed $410 million (not adjusted for inflation, mind you, those are 1977 dollars) in its original theatrical run alone and Guinness got 2.25% off the top. That was a bit under $10 million dollars in 1977 - depending on how you lawyer the royalty agreements, that’s somewhere between $7 million on the lowest end and in the mid-$9 millions on the high end.

Adjusted for inflation the high side estimate we’re talking about is just shy of $49 million today and even on the low end it’s over $32 million. And again, that’s just off the initial theatrical run. It doesn’t count any of the numerous re-releases or any of the money it made on video or television.

Adding the money off all those is a bit tougher, but it means Guinness’ final take, just in royalties, just from the first Star Wars was well north of $75 million adjusted for inflation and likely closing in on $100 million.

So he very definitely lived well just on his royalties alone.