Oh, the Places You’ll Grow!
Dr. Seuss hatched a $33 million nest egg in 2020, making him the second-highest-paid dead celebrity behind Michael Jackson.
Dr. Seuss hatched a $33 million nest egg in 2020, making him the second-highest-paid dead celebrity behind Michael Jackson.
Sam-I-Am now has a lot more green to go with those eggs and ham.
The estate of Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) nearly doubled its income in 2020, earning an estimated $33 million in a very Grinch-like year.
The bigger payday is thanks to a smart new strategy from the team at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which transformed the 60-plus books from the beloved children’s author into a multimedia universe: Think Marvel’s Avengers without crossover characters.
First up in the Seuss-iverse was Netflix’s Green Eggs and Ham, which turned the 50-word book into an animated series that cost a reported $65 million and was voiced by Michael Douglas, Keegan-Michael Key and Diane Keaton, among others. In addition to a second helping of Ham, there’s also a three-movie deal with Warner Bros.
“We put our big-boy pants on,” says Susan Brandt, a former Twentieth Century Fox home-video executive who has been leading the Seuss revival since 2012. The timing is finally right: Studios and deep-pocketed streaming giants Netflix, Apple, Disney and Amazon are in an arms race for original content that saw them spend more than $120 billion last year. A huge portion of that amount is going to proven intellectual property and brand-name entertainers, many of whom are long dead.
Several other names on our annual highest-paid dead celebrities list received streaming paydays this year. Peanuts signed a lucrative deal with Apple TV+ that landed creator Charles Schulz at No. 3, with $32.5 million. Netflix shelled out big bucks for an animated series featuring Elvis Presley (No. 5) and yet another biopic of Marilyn Monroe (No. 13).
Sadly, there are also young newcomers to the list—21-year-old rapper Juice WRLD (No. 7) earned $15 million since last year’s list, and NBA Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant, killed in a helicopter crash in January, is No. 6, having earned $20 million.