How much is Matt Groening worth?
| Net Worth: | $500 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Cartoonist |
| Date of Birth: | February 15, 1954 (age 68) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 5 ft 8 in (1.75 m) |
About Matt Groening
If you ever saw your dad smack the television set in 1990s because he thought the screen was fuzzy, it may have been Matt Groening’s fault. Groening is a comedy writer and cartoonist who is most well known for creating America’s most treasured family, The Simpsons, as well as the cult sci-fi cartoon Futurama.
People see Groening as one of the entertainment industry’s most visionary world builders, as both of those shows are filled with unique characters in dense worlds that have their own rules. Thanks to his production, development, and creativity, Groening has been nominated for over 40 Emmy Awards, winning a total of 13 of them, and is sitting on an unbelievable fortune.
You may not have seen what Groening looks like in real life as he appears on television in cartoon form more often than he does human form, occasionally featuring in both The Simpsons and Futurama. The Simpsons came to fruition in the late 1980s, as it featured in the sketch show The Tracey Ullman show, but was later turned in to 20 minute episodes.
Groening followed up his success of The Simpsons with his passion project Futurama. The show had many of the same tropes as The Simpsons, such as opening credits that have running gags, an odd-ball family, and riddled with pop culture references.
It was successful, but it didn’t blow up as much as The Simpsons did. Futurama had more of a cult following, and in later years of the show, there were problems for funding and finding a network for the show. However, Groening came up with the clever idea to keep the show lucrative and fresh by releasing only direct-to-DVD movies. Leading to four feature length episodes between 2007 and 2009. Thanks to strong DVD sales at the time, Futurama was bought by Adult Swim who funded more seasons.
The cartoonist’s latest project arose from sketches in his note book that he found not possible to use in The Simpsons. Accumulating those sketches, he created the Netflix original series, Disenchantment. There is no way of knowing how successful Disenchantment is due to Netflix being secretive about their numbers, but in promoting the show it was billed as the return of Matt Groening and it hosted a slew of famous comedians, such as Abbi Jacobson and Eric Andre, voicing oddball roles.
The show has two hilarious seasons and has been renewed for two more.
It is unclear exactly how much Groening makes from being the creator and executive producer of one of the most popular TV shows of all time, but there are several clues the show us he makes tens of millions every year.
The Simpsons is a part of many different platforms. Not only does it have hundreds of episodes in rotation on TV, but you can also stream almost every episode of the series on Disney+, and Groening would see a significant amount of syndication and streaming sales.
The have also been countless video games made from the show, most famously with The Simpsons: Hit & Run, a free roaming game where the player can freely travel around the streets of Springfield, parodying the popular video game series, Grand Theft Auto.
Groaning has built an empire with The Simpsons and the sheer amount of products and entertainment that are spawned from the franchise are countless. There was a movie made out of The Simpsons, apple titled The Simpsons Movie, which made $527 million dollars worldwide from just a $75 million budget. A video game serving as a tie-in to the movie was also released at the same time. Then there are toys, comic-books, soundtracks, and more. The list goes on and on.
All totaled up, The Simpsons franchise is reportedly worth almost one billion dollars.
The Simpsons is the longest running U.S. animated sitcom in history. The show has over 30 seasons and has won dozens of awards. One of the biggest reasons why The Simpsons has become so successful is because of it’s inclusion of real life celebrities and historical figures.
Matt Groening has this strange skill in being able to predict the future through The Simpsons episodes, so much so that people theorize that he is in fact a time traveler. The Simpsons has predicted Disney buying 20th Century Fox, Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl performance, and most mind blowing, Donald Trump becoming president, even down to the show replicating exact photos that wouldn’t be taken until many years in to the future.
The Simpson’s writing is unprecedented for many reasons and his drawings are what drew attention to the series, in the first place.
All of the characters in the cartoon are based on real life people that Groening has encountered, including his family, and a lot of the show’s success can be attributed to how much the audience can relate to the show’s characters (especially the every-man, Homer,) something that had never previously been done in a cartoon.
Groening’s work has inspired dozens of other animated 20 minute sitcoms catered more towards adults, with the obvious culprit being Seth Macfarlane‘s Family Guy. Even Futurama influenced many bizarre time bending, space adventure, parallel universe shows, most recently with Rick & Morty. Futurama’s alcoholic robot anti-hero, Bender, is the perfect foreshadow to the angry and always drunk mad scientist, Rick.
Despite there being a feud between the writers of The Simpsons and the writers of Family Guy, Groening has openly admitted that in recent years The Simpsons has been influenced by Family Guy in its storytelling.
However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a feud. Groening sent the creators of South Park a bouquet of flowers after an episode of the show heavily featured jokes at Family Guy’s expense.
Summing-Up
Thanks predominantly to the yellow characters that the world has fallen in love with, Matt Groening has an estimated net worth of $500 million. It seems like new episodes of The Simpsons will be developed until the end of time, and Groening will continue to work on his fantastical characters in Disenchantment as Netflix has renewed the show for 20 more episodes. The talented cartoonist has also expressed a desire to return to the world of Futurama, but only time will tell if that ever comes to light.
