How much is Val Kilmer worth?
| Net Worth: | $20 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Actor |
| Date of Birth: | December 31, 1959 (age 63) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 5 ft 11 in (1.82 m) |
About Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer is an American actor who first rose to prominence in the 1980s thanks to movies such as Top Secret, Real Genius, and Willow. The actor is highly gifted, as he was the youngest actor to ever get in to Juilliard and grew up to become a sex symbol throughout the 1990s.
Kilmer has become just as well known for being hard to work with as he is for his acting skills, with many directors going as far to say that they’ll never work with him again. Some of the actor’s most famous movies include The Doors, Batman Forever, and Top Gun.
Kilmer first got his big break when he was cast in the comedy spoof movie Top Secret in 1984, when he was just 25 years old. The film parodies movies from the Cold War era and World War II dramas. One year later, it was beginning to look like he was typecast to comedy movies, as he followed up the success of Top Secret with Real Genius, a movie about a genius in his second year of college working on a chemical laser.
Both of these movies were received well critically and saw a modest success at the box office, making a few million on top of their budget.
However, in 1986, the floodgates opened up for Kilmer, as he earned a starring role in the Tom Cruise classic, Top Gun.
The movie was a huge commercial success, making more than an estimated $350 million worldwide and it has become iconic, even getting a sequel set for release next year. This certified Kilmer as a certified bankable movie star, as he went in to lead the 1988 fantasy adventure movie, Willow, and then Jim Morrison in the 1991 biographical drama, The Doors. The actor didn’t always care if he wasn’t in the lead role either, as he featured in the cult classic True Romance as Elvis Presley, who is never shot in focus.
By the time 1995 came around, Kilmer was one of the biggest and most influential movie stars on the planet, and it led to him being cast in Batman Forever, who was specifically requested to play the caped crusader by the director, Joel Schumacher.
Following the two Tim Burton and Michael Keaton collaborations, Batman and Batman Returns, the studio wanted a more child friendly movie, which is why Joel Schumacher replaced Burton.
The movie was again a huge hit, earning an estimated $356 million globally.
1995 was a big year for Kilmer, as he didn’t only star as the world’s greatest detective, but he had a leading role alongside Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Heat, arguably the greatest heist movie of all time. The movie was hugely popular due to being the first ever movie where Pacino and De Niro shared screen time together.
Though he has released few iconic movies since then, Kilmer has starred in some great movies in the 21st century, including Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with Robert Downey Jr., Déjà vu, MacGruber, and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
With a long list of movies in his filmography, it seems like Kilmer is so busy he barely gets a minute to himself, but that usually means huge pay days. Kilmer has had no shame in admitting that the reason he decided to become an actor was because of the money. Or to be specific, he has said that he became an actor because he could make his own hours, get ridiculously overpaid, and get the girls. The bulk of his wealth mostly comes from a five year span in his career in the late 90s.
The actor was paid an estimated $7 million for his role a Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever, which comes to an estimated $12 million today, adjusted for inflation.
It’s ironic that most of Kilmer’s highest paid roles are for movies that completely bombed at the box office, but it doesn’t matter to Kilmer, as he gets paid despite the box office outcome. The highest payday Kilmer ever saw was for his role in Red Planet, which saw him become an estimated $12 million richer.
With a budget of $80 million, the movie was a huge failure, as it barely scratched the $30 million mark worldwide. One of his most infamous movies, The Island of Dr. Moreau earned him an estimated $6 million, which had a notoriously troubled production and has even had a documentary made about the movie’s production, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau.
In the 1990s, Kilmer was a sex symbol and it helped him earn dozens of roles that awarded him millions and millions of dollars. It’s what helped him become the only ever actor who has portrayed Batman to have blonde hair, as the character has always had dark hair.
On top of that, Kilmer is extremely particular about what roles he accepts and he takes extreme care in controlling how he is perceived, as he even turned down Patrick Swayze’s role in Dirty Dancing because he didn’t want to be looked at as a “hunk”. Also, being a Christian Scientist, he takes many roles with religious undertones.
At the time Kilmer was accepted in to Juilliard’s drama department, he was the youngest person to ever do so. He managed this by reading a monologue from one of his own plays during the audition, knowing that other applicants would be reading something that the faculty would have heard hundreds of times before.
Though the record now belongs to Seth Numrich, who was 15 when he was granted entry in to the prestigious school, it’s still a massive feat.
Summing-Up
Coming from a theater background, Kilmer has gone on to play one of the most iconic roles of all time, along with many iconic movies, cult classics, and underrated comedies. His filmography is so dense and varied, and it has helped him accrue a net worth of an estimated $20 million. Most recently, Kilmer published an autobiography, I’m Your Huckleberry: A Memoir, and he’ll be starring in the upcoming action thriller movie, The Birthday Cake.
