Tommy Lee Jones Net Worth

How much is Tommy Lee Jones worth?

About Tommy Lee Jones

Thomas Lee Jones was born on September 15, 1946 and is an American actor and film director with an estimated net worth of $70 million. In the 1993 thriller The Fugitive Tommy Lee Jones played the role of U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.

Known for his portrayal of historical figures Jones was Howard Hughes in The Amazing Howard Hughes, Radical Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens in Lincoln, executed murderer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner’s Song, U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur in Emperor, and businessman Clay Shaw, in JFK.

Not everybody who graduates from Harvard goes on to become scientists and Nobel Prize winners, some of them just want to pretend to kill aliens in tuxedos. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at the Ivy League college, Tommy Lee Jones became a highly acclaimed actor who has been nominated for numerous roles throughout the 1990s as well as starring in family movies, most notably the Men In Black franchise.

Jones is most well known for taking on roles such as generals, cops, and other characters of authority. Tommy Lee Jones knows what he does best, and he plays up to the fact that he is type-cast in these kinds of roles.

It was a while before Jones made his way in to movies, as he enjoyed acting on television, and he received multiple Golden Globes and Emmy nominations in the process. The most exposure he got in this medium was in 1989 when the actor starred in Lonesome Dove. When Jones did eventually break on to the big screen, he starred in some of the most iconic films in pop culture, both cult movies, such as Natural Born Killers, and Hollywood blockbusters, such as Jason Bourne, Lincoln, Men In Black, and more.

His most notable role outside of successful franchises was in 1993’s The Fugitive, an adaptation of the acclaimed TV series, in which he acted alongside Harrison Ford in a cat and mouse chase thriller. For an R-rated movie at the time, it was a huge success, making over $368.9 million at the box office, which, adjusted for inflation, in 2022 dollars, is equal to $717.8 million today. Jones won his first Academy Award for his supporting role in the movie.

The Fugitive paved the way for a string of successes for the actor in the 90s. Jones played the villainous Two Face in the first family friendly Batman movie. Batman Forever is the only movie where you can find Jones having fun with the character, being expressive and agile. However, Jones has since complained about his experience working on the film, especially working alongside Jim Carrey. Nevertheless, it was another strike in Jones’ career as it made $336.6  million and hundreds of millions more from toy sales and other merchandise.

Jones’ most famous role is undoubtedly as Agent K in the Men In Black franchise. After finding success in the family movie Batman Forever, the actor’s second foray in to the genre found him acting alongside Will Smith, who was also coming off a blockbuster hot streak with Bad Boys and Independence Day. The result was a massive success and the actor’s highest grossing movie to date, making $589.4 million worldwide. The movie went on to have two sequels and is now a billion dollar franchise.

Thanks to the Men In Black franchise, Tommy Lee Jones has accrued millions, with his salary doubling with each movie. The first entry in the series earned the actor an estimated $10 million, but that was nothing compared to the $20 million he is estimated to have made for the sequel. It doesn’t end there, when negotiating his salary for Men In Black II, it was agreed that Jones would get a percentage of the back end take, which means a percentage of the box office gross.

For the sequel to The Fugitive, the actor was able to negotiate a much larger salary as he was no longer sharing screen time with Harrison Ford and instead being the sole lead actor, for this he made an estimated $17 million for U.S. Marshals.

Even though it was a small role, Jones was also involved in the biggest movie franchise of all time, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He starred alongside Chris Evans in Captain America: The First Avenger. However, unlike every other actor in the series, Jones never returned in any of the follow up movies in the franchise. The First Avenger’ was one of the more popular MCU movies of the phase one films, as it went on to earn $370.6 million and is unique in the series as the film is as much a period drama as it is a superhero movie, being set during World War 2.

Though Jones takes the odd comedic or voice over role, the actor is clearly type cast due to his stoic look and grouchy attitude that he has become known for, Jones’ most notable roles tend to be those of detectives and generals. Even in Small Soldiers, a family movie in which children’s toys come to life, Lee voices the lead antagonist, a lieutenant who leads the group of soldiers. The very same year in 1998, the actor played a Deputy U.S. Marshall in the movie U.S. Marshals. Year in, year out, Jones plays a man of power with an attitude but means well.

Some directors and crew members that the actor has worked with claim that Jones is not acting, and that his tough guy attitude is who Tommy Lee Jones really is. Not many people know much about Jones and though the actor hates publicity, stays out of the public eye, and is unashamedly quiet, Jones fills the movie screen with ferocity and intensity that few actors can. Couple his powerful and intimidating approach with some very distinctive traits, such as his distinguishing bushy dark eyebrows and his Texan drawl, and to a producer’s eyes Jones can be reliably villainous, which is why it’s so easy to cast him as military characters and tough guys.

After working in film and television for so long, Jones picked up skills other than acting, such as producing and directing. Though it wasn’t very successful commercially, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, directed by the actor, was one of the most acclaimed movies of the year and was nominated for multiple awards, with Jones winning one of the most prestigious awards an actor can get at the Cannes Film Festival. The actor’s sophomore directorial effort, The Homesman, has a similar story as the film is a historical drama filled with prestigious actors, and it was also in selection for the Palme D’or, the most important award a movie can get.

Summing-Up

Thanks to Jones being high in demand when it comes to being a militant figure in the screenplay, his great working relationship with Oliver Stone, and being the face of Men In Black, Tommy Lee Jones has an astounding estimated net worth of $70 million. In the coming months, Jones will star in The Comeback Trail, a remake of the 1982 crime comedy of the same name, and he’ll be starring alongside Robert De Niro and Morgan Freeman.