Brendan Fraser’s Net Worth Got a Big Boost From ‘The Whale’—His 1st Movie After Being ‘Blacklisted’ From Hollywood
He was just nominated for a Golden Globe after years of being “blacklisted” by Hollywood, so what sort of impact has The Whale had on Brendan Fraser’s net worth?
In the late 90s to early 2000s, Fraser was one of the hottest stars in the industry, having secured the lead role in The Mummy franchise—three films that grossed over $1.2 billion at the box office collectively—as well as rom-coms like Blast from the Past opposite Alicia Silverstone and Bedazzled, opposite Elizabeth Hurley. But Fraser disappeared from the spotlight in 2008 after he accused the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association of sexual assault, after which the quality of roles made available to him depleted significantly.
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Now, he’s been nominated for a Golden Globe in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, marking Fraser’s triumphant return to Hollywood’s A-list. He told StyleCaster at the premiere of The Whale in November 2022 that he felt “affirmed” by the positive attention this film and his performance has garnered but acknowledged: “I don’t know a single actor alive who isn’t just grateful to have a job, so I hope I never lose sight of that.”
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Brendan Fraser’s net worth
Brendan Fraser’s net worth is estimated to be $20 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. As mentioned, there was a time when Fraser was among the hottest, most in-demand stars in the business. His breakout role came in 1992 with School Ties and just two years later, for the film The Scout, he was already on his way to earning a decent paycheck with a salary of $1.4 million.
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His first true box office success was in 1997 as George in George of the Jungle opposite Leslie Mann. The comedy, based on a cartoon series, about a less-than-gracious parody of Tarzan, took in $108 million. Fraser recalled how he achieved his character’s lithe physique, telling Adam Sandler during Variety’s Actors on Actors video series: “[I was] waxed, greased, starved of carbohydrates” he said. “I would drive home after work and stop to get something to eat. I needed some cash one day, and I went to the ATM, and I couldn’t remember my PIN number because my brain was misfiring. Banging on the thing. I didn’t eat that night.”
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The film was so successful Disney offered Mann and Fraser a sequel, but both turned it down. “I think George got a remake, and they built a joke into it that the studio was too cheap to hire me, which wasn’t inaccurate,” Fraser told Entertainment Weekly. “I was approached. I can’t remember what I was doing at the time, but I felt like I wanted to go do The Quiet American instead with Michael Caine.”
What was Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy salaries?
Two years later would be Fraser’s most lucrative films. The Mummy, released in 1999, grossed $416 million at the box office. He was paid a reported $4 million for the first film, but earned considerably more for the Mummy sequels, The Mummy Returns (2001) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), which grossed $435 million and $403.4 million respectively and his paychecks were $10 and $14 million. He also would have received a percentage of the box office royalties. Fraser also earned $10 million in 2000 for his role in Bedazzled.
He did as many of his own stunts as he could during the three Mummy films and director Stephen Sommers said Fraser was cast because “he could throw a punch and take a punch and he had a great sense of humor,” per Variety. That level of physicality the Mummy films demanded ended up taking its toll on Fraser’s body, though. “By the time I did the third Mummy picture in China I was put together with tape and ice—just, like, really nerdy and fetishy about ice packs,” he told GQ. “I needed a laminectomy. And the lumbar didn’t take, so they had to do it again a year later.”
In 2017, Universal rebooted The Mummy but Fraser wasn’t invited back. Instead, Tom Cruise was cast. It was widely regarded as a box office flop, grossing just $32.2 million domestically at debut and garnering plenty of negative reviews. Fraser believes he knows why. “The ingredient that we had going for our Mummy, which I didn’t see in that film, was fun. That was what was lacking in that incarnation. It was too much of a straight-ahead horror movie. The Mummy should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary,” he said, adding he’d be open to filming the fourth installment. “I don’t know how it would work, but I’d be open to it if someone came up with the right conceit.”
What was Brendan Fraser’s divorce settlement?
2008 onwards was a tough time for Fraser. His 20-year marriage to Afton Smith fell apart and they officially divorced that same year. Though he was paid $10 million for the film Fury Vengeance the year after, his salary became a part of a later alimony battle with Smith, as she claimed he was initially offered $7.5 million while they were in the middle of their divorce settlement. This split was tough on Fraser financially. He agreed to pay her a little under $8.7 million in a settlement, which Celebrity Net Worth reports was almost exactly half his net worth at the time of their divorce.
He also agreed to pay her $75,000 a month in child support for their three sons, Griffin, Holden and Leland, which equated to $900,000 a year. The alimony would last 10 years but because his career had gone quiet, he had to petition a court in 2013 to have his alimony payments reduced though it’s not known whether this alteration was granted.
Fraser was no longer receiving the large paychecks he once was because he believes he was blacklisted by Hollywood because he claimed he’d been sexually abused by the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), Phillip Berk. In his memoir, With Signs and Wonders, Berk recounted he’d pinched Fraser’s ass, but in a GQ article from 2018, Fraser recalled it was much more than that. “His left-hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around,” he described, having never spoken about the incident publicly until then “for risk of humiliation, or damage to” his career. Eventually, he was able to remove Berk’s hand. “I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry,” he said.
Fraser’s reps asked the HFPA for a written apology, but Berk “admitted no wrongdoing” and said Fraser’s account was a “complete fabrication.” The actor told GQ the incident made him “retreat” and “feel reclusive”. He became “depressed” and wondered if the HFPA had blacklisted him. “I don’t know if this curried disfavor with the group, with the HFPA. But the silence was deafening,” he said, adding that he was rarely invited back to the Golden Globes after 2003. His career deteriorated, his marriage broke down and Fraser faded into obscurity.
That is until director Darren Aronofsky resurrected his career with The Whale, which is based on the play by Samuel D. Hunter of the same name. Fraser is said to have been paid $12 million for the lead role of Charlie—a gay man who tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter while suffering a myriad of health problems due to his morbid obesity. When the film screened at the Venice Film Festival in September 2022, Fraser received a six-minute standing ovation which left him visibly emotional.
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