How much is Shia LaBeouf worth?
| Net Worth: | $20 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Actor |
| Date of Birth: | June 11, 1986 (age 36) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 5 ft 9 in (1.76 m) |
“I wasn’t cocky, just confident; I went to an all black school, a white kid.” Shia LaBeouf
About Shia LaBeouf
Shia Labeouf is a Hollywood actor, writer, director, and performance artists. His first name is pronounced to rhyme with “hiya” and his last name is pronounced “La-buff”. He is most well known from his acting work and has starred in films alongside Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Michael Douglass, Tom Hardy, and Keanu Reeves. Having started his acting career at the age of 12, LaBeouf has been acting for most of his life. In his two decade long career, LaBeouf has increasingly become an obsession of the paparazzi’s due to his startling performance art that regularly includes audience participation.
He attended the prestigious Hamilton Academy of Music in Los Angeles, California. He is known to have an eclectic taste in music with some of his favourite music being from System of a Down, 50 Cent, Eminem, D12, Led Zeppelin, Jack Johnson, Ben Folds and others. He also performs some music himself. In 2005, he performed alongside hip-hop MC G Money at the Viper Room. LaBeouf also plays basketball, sometimes with Lizzie McGuire (2001) star Adam Lamberg.
LaBeouf graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School. He also attended 32nd Street USC Visual and Performing Arts Magnet. His second father and mentor was Jon Voight.
LaBeouf got in to the industry at a very young age, starting out as a Disney child star and gaining notoriety from his role in Even Stevens (2000), playing the titular character Louis Stevens for which he even won an Emmy Award for the role. Around that time he had a bunch of small-time roles in shows like The X-Files and Freaks and Geeks, they didn’t pay much LaBeouf was becoming more and more recognizable on television.
He would later go on to counteract his kids’ show persona by taking more left-field movie roles, which are adored by film critics. LaBeouf considers The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) as his transition movie from child actor to adult actor.
He would also take part in obscure and, at times, somewhat socially absurd performance art. Some of his performances include audience participation, most notably when he sat in a room and allowed spectators to say whatever they wanted to him, and many of these results in LaBeouf breaking down in tears.
Many video clips from his performance art have become viral memes, and some people may recognize LaBeouf more from these than his film roles. “I’m an actor, but I’m also an artist,” he has said.
Yes, Shia LaBeouf does all kinds of things. He once spent three consecutive days non-stop watching his own movies in a theater, which he also filmed himself doing.
He is well liked despite his antics, like the time he was arrested for driving under the influence after being involved in a car crash. Some people say that he and rapper, Post Malone, look alike. Post has said, “I love it when people claim that I look like Shia.” He is a likable character who comes from a background that formed an artist and movie star.
When you put it all together with Shia’s non stop motivation, ability to get far out of his comfort zone, incredible dedication and the skills to back it up. It is no wonder that he became famous so young, or that he had the encourage to perform such live social art performances. These no doubt have added to his fame.
LaBeouf has had a powerful career trajectory and struck gold with a string of hugely successful movies in the late 2000s that granted him more freedom and options to do what he wanted. After the leading role in the Disney movie Holes (2003), in which he held his own against Hollywood heavyweights Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight, doors were opened for the actor that otherwise wouldn’t have.
“I was always raised on cowboy films, and then when I could start making choices about the movies I wanted to watch I found myself wanting to watch gangster films which were slightly more sophisticated than the baseline stuff that was in westerns.” Shia LaBeouf
In the years following, LaBeouf starred in a plethora of high-budget, high-concept movies with massive movie stars, such as; Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), I, Robot (2004), Constantine (2005), and Disturbia (2007). Disturbia features a song by one of LaBeouf’s favorite bands “Lonely Day,” by System of a Down.
Shia was a hot commodity, and this led him to the biggest role he has ever have, Sam Witwicky in the Transformers franchise. In fact, he was so hot at that time that he had only two days off between between finishing the shooting of Disturbia and beginning that of Transformers (2007). That year, he was also ranked #7 on Yahoo! List of “10 Most Popular Stars of 2007” on Yahoo! Movies.
John Turturro was one of his boyhood inspirations. As dreams do come true Labeouf worked with John Turturro in Transformers (2007), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011).
Spear-headed by action-movie titan, Michael Bay. LaBeouf starred in three Transformers movies, each one more successful than the last. The run ended with Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which at the time became the fourth highest grossing movie of all time; it hit $1.124 billion dollars at the box office.
In 2009, LaBeouf topped Forbes magazine’s list of actors who had earned movie studios the best return on investment. The films that he had appeared in earned an average of $160 for every $1 he was paid.
There have been two Transformers sequels after Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) and Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), neither of which LaBeouf starred in. While earned $1.104 billion at the box office, it was poorly received only scoring 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. Likely the success of the previous films that LaBeouf did star in aided its success as audiences wanted to see how things changed. Transformers: The Last Knight earned half of what Transformers: Dark of the Moon earned, with box office earnings of only $605.4 million dollars worldwide.
Based on the above. It could be argued that Transformers’ success as a franchise, is quite some to do with Shia being the star in the first three movies.
Alongside Transformers, studio executives had eyed up LaBeouf for another billion dollar franchise.
In 2008, the then 22 year old starred in the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Having a role in an Indiana Jones movie means that Shia is a part of two franchises that have grossed over a billion dollars in box office earnings. In the movie it seemed like the actor was being groomed to fill the boots of Harrison Ford himself, continuing the franchise as the lead character.
But LaBeouf’s trajectory changed completely after the Transformers movies and he has not starred in a franchise movie since. It is highly unlikely that he hasn’t received any offers, though. It’s more likely that, based on interviews with LaBeouf and his recent choices, he just doesn’t want to. Becoming such a huge star at such a young age has provided him enough wealth that he can decide to turn down big roles and instead focus on passion projects. Like playing a sex addict in Lars Von Trier’s four hour, two-part movie, Nymphomaniac.
Shia LaBeouf’s highest paying movie role has been his role of Sam Witwicky as part of the Transformers franchise. While he was only paid $750,000 for Transformers (2007). He was paid $5 million two years later for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009). Two years after that he got his biggest paycheck to date when he was paid $15 million to reprise the role for Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011).
He was also paid $8 million for playing Jake Moore in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010). Today Shia LaBeouf has a net worth estimated to be about $20 million dollars.
LaBeouf has earned a tremendous net worth and at an early age. He is also not someone who spends it frivoulisly or needs to be seen at certain clubs or celebrity photoshoot locations. In fact he has said, “clubs are so lame. Nobody even dances at these clubs. They stand around and get drunk and they schmooze. There is no enjoyment factor.” He can be somewhat of a crazy character, I find, but he certainly is passionate.
LaBeouf has always been a very outgoing character and always knew how to make money. Even as a child he and his parents would dress up like clowns and sell hot dogs in the park across the street from their apartment.
He has put in an incredible amount of time, effort and dedication into his acting profession and from his own words he has said, “to my mind, talent doesn’t really exist.”
LaBeouf has charisma and he always plays against type, keeping audiences delighted and surprised. Due to his public persona and his outlandish ideas, people are interested in what he does. LaBeouf is hugely talented, full of energy, and since the age of 12 he has accrued a plethora of skills. LaBeouf has developed skills in writing, producing, and directing, as well as acting.
He puts everything he can in to a role and he doesn’t hold back. What makes him so driven is perhaps own life experiences, his early life with his family and the way that he took on Hollywood at such an early age. In 2019, the actor won numerous awards for his movie Honey Boy, a drama based on his relationship with his father that he penned himself.
More than anything, he is an enigma. He doesn’t play the press-circuit game as other celebrities might. That may be why people find him so appealing, because they understand so little about him and he often delights and surprises.
Summing-Up
People love Shia LaBeouf for many different reasons. Some people have grown up with him on the screen since he was 12 years old, and those kids that loved Even Stevens (2000). Have grown up with him.
His net worth is estimated to be about $20 million dollars, which sounds like a lot, but it’s surprisingly low considering how the Transformers movies performed at the box office. However that is often the way, big productions like that can spend more on the fireworks that the lead characters. Despite the films becoming some of the highest grossing of all time, LaBeouf was only paid about $20 million for all three.
As Labeouf has said though, “so long as I have money to eat, I’m fine”. It seems to me that he prefers to live his life on his own schedule and definitely does not put the movie business first. In fact that can be seen through his various performance art, it is not exactly the kind of thing that helps boost your career in showbiz. A high profile relationship is usually the way to do that but I don’t really think that is LaBeouf’s style. He briefly married moderately famous English actress, Mia Goth, in 2016, they later divorced in 2018. LaBeouf starred Abel Ferrara’s upcoming film Padre Pio, in the lead role as the Italian saint.
