David Benioff Net Worth | Complete Bio

David Benioff is an American screenwriter, producer, and director. David Benioff net worth is about $100 million.

David is best known for his work on “Game of Thrones”, for which he created the story and co-wrote the screenplay with D. B. Weiss. Benioff earns an estimated $5 million per year from his work on “Game of Thrones” alone. He has also has written the screenplays for “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “Troy.” Let’s learn more about this super talented screenwriter.

Who is David Benioff

David Benioff is a world-renowned author and screenwriter, who was asked to have his thesis turned into a script so he could also eventually become a producer and director. His natural talent shows in his work, even from his early days with a master’s degree in creative writing.

David Benioff net worth has been generated mainly from his screenplays catered to large audiences and major entertainment companies such as HBO, Netflix, and Disney.

He has written and co-created the immensely successful TV show “Games of Thrones.” He is also the author of “The 25th Hour” (which was originally his thesis for university, and which was later published) and “City of Thieves.”

Besides writing TV series scripts and novels, David has also written short stories, such as “When the Nines Rollover” and many film scripts such as “The 25th Hour”, “Stay”, “Troy”, “The Kite Runner”, “Brothers”, “Wolverine”, and “Gemini Man.”

David is also the producer of one film titled “Metal Lords.”

As a young writer, David strongly believed in the style and rhythm of the author’s sentences and characters than in the writing structure. That is the main reason why his stories are not structured traditionally and appeal to the audience differently.

Want to learn more about other producers? Check out Tim Matheson and Dick Wolf here.

David Benioff’s Net Worth Estimate

 

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David Benioffs net worth is around $100 million, which makes him in the top 1% of millionaire writers. There is also a $5 million addition in David Benioff’s net worth each year from Game of Thrones.

Most of David Benioffs net worth is generated from the novels and screenplays he has written. His first ever novel that made him over half a million was “The 25th Hour” when Tobey Maguire asked him to adapt his novel into a screenplay in 2002.

In 2004, David wrote the screenplay for the film “Troy,” which became the world’s 60th highest-grossing film of that time, earning over $497 million. Warner Bros. Pictures paid him about $2.5 million for Troy.

In 2005, he wrote another psychological thriller-based script, “Stay,” starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi, with Marc Forster as the director. David was paid $1.8 million for this project.

Warner Brothers hired David to write “X-men Origins: Wolverine.” The movie had a budget of $150 million, and the estimated gross profit was $373 million. Due to the success of this movie, a handsome amount was added to David Benioff net worth.

One of David’s highest-paying projects was HBO’s television series from 2011 to 2019, “Games of Thrones.” It is estimated that this project alone makes a significant contribution to David Benioffs net worth.

In August 2019, Weiss and Benioff negotiated with Netflix on an exclusive multi-year television and film deal worth $200 million where almost $100 million went straight to David Benioff net worth. These works will be released in 2023 and 2024.

David Benioff’s Early Life

David Benioff Friedman was born on September 25, 1970, in New York City. He is the son of Barbara and Stephen Friedman. His family had ancestral roots in Romania, Poland, Austria, Germany, and Russia.

His father was a businessperson and politician, and his mother was a poet. David wasn’t an only child in this creative and far-thinking family; he also grew up with two sisters, Suzy and Caroline.

Benioff spent his childhood in Manhattan, where he mostly lived on 8th street after moving from Peter Cooper town. Later, when he was sixteen years old, his family moved near the U.N. Headquarters. David ended up attending the Collegiate School in Manhattan.

David is also an alumnus of Dartmouth College, where he was a member of the Sphinx Senior Society and Phi Delta Alpha Fraternity.

After graduation, David struggled with what he wanted to pursue in his life and went through a circle of different jobs. Initially, he was a club bouncer in San Fransisco. Then, in Brooklyn, he was an English teacher at the school Poly Prep, where he also served as a coach for the wrestling team.

Eventually, David decided that being an English teacher wasn’t enough, so he went back to school to pursue an academic career. In 1995, he enrolled in Trinity College Dublin for their one-year Irish Literature program. It is where he and his future collaborative, D. B. Weiss, met for the first time.

He worked part-time as a D.J. on the radio in Moose, Wyoming. The job was mainly to ensure that his expenses were covered in his writer’s retreat.

David then applied to the University of California and got a Master of Fine Arts in 1999. This is where his career really started to take off, as it was his thesis that got him noticed by the movie industry.

People Magazine, in 2001, included his name among the top 50 of the most eligible bachelors, likely due to his academic success so far in his life, and possibly his influential parents. The same year, his first novel was published, for which he paid $12,000 to a publisher.

David Benioff’s Height, and Weight

David Benioff stands at 6 feet 3 inches (190.5 cm) and weighs 190 pounds (86 kg).

David Benioff’s Place of Birth and Early Life

David Benioff was born in New York City on September 25th, 1970. He was the youngest of three siblings. He attended the University of California, where he graduated with a Masters in creative writing.

David Benioff’s Career

Benioff wrote his first novel, initially named “Fireman Down,” as his master’s degree thesis project, which took two years to complete. He later changed the novel’s name to “The 25th Hour” and published it.

Later, Tobey Maguire asked David to adapt the story into a screenplay after reading the preliminary copy of the book. Tobey was so impressed with the initial story that he decided to make a film from it, and David was in the right spot at the right time to make it happen.

David Benioff, in 2004, published a series of short stories collection. That same year, he was signed on by Warner Bros. Pictuates, which offered him $2.5 million to draft a screenplay, “Troy,” which was a mythological epic. This hit the audience with a big success, as the film is still venerated today.

In 2005, David wrote a psychological thriller script, “Stay,” and then in 2007, he wrote the script for “The Kite Runner“, adapted from his novel. Both of these films were directed by Marc Foster.

Marc Forster worked with David Benioff on “The Kite Runner,” for which David was paid comparatively less than previous earnings due to the studio’s limited budget. The film’s budget was $20 million, earning $73.3 million worldwide.

Benioff wrote a screenplay for “X-men Origins: Wolverine,” which hit the big box theatres with huge success. Part of this success lies in how David allowed actor Hugh Jackman to edit a few of his lines. Hugh wanted Wolverine to be a deeper character piece, sticking to the audience and moving them emotionally, and David obliged.

In 2006, David decided to adapt the novel series by George R. R. Martin named “A Song of Ice and Fire”. He also worked with Weiss on a web series proposal, “Game of Thrones.”

“Game of Thrones” was picked up by HBO, which helped produce the “Winter is Coming” pilot in 2007. In 2010, the series officially started, with David and his partner at the forefront. Weiss and Benioff worked on the show as executive producers, writers, and showrunners. The show officially aired, much to everyone’s delight, in 2011 on HBO.

During these years, Benioff was also once hired by Universal Pictures, in October of 2007, to write a screenplay adapted from Kurt Cobain’s biography, but the script ended up not being used. “City Of Thieves”, the second novel written by Benioff, was also published in 2008.

David and Weiss, on April 10, 2014, announced that they were working on their first feature film project, “Dirty White Boys.” They said that its story would be adapted from a novel by Stephen Hunter, and both would manage the production and direction by themselves.

Regarding “Dirty White Boys” production, however, remains a mystery. Kasey Moore says that there have been many years of silence on the project with no update regarding the status. No one knows whether it is canceled or will be continued in the future.

Later on July 19 of the year 2017, both Benioff and Weiss announced another HBO production that they wanted to start, “Confederate,” when the final season of “Games of Thrones” ended. In August of 2019, it was announced that this new project was canceled and would not move any further.

Disney, in 2018, announced that both Weiss and Benioff would produce and write the “Stars Wars” films series. However, in the coming years, this would not come to be, as David would end up having other obligations.

As the final season of “Games of Thrones” ended, a petition was filed by Change.org to HBO that called both writers “woefully incompetent.” The petition, signed by over 1.8 million people, demanded a remake of the eighth season of “Game of Thrones.”

Weiss and Benioff, in August of 2019, negotiated a multi-year television and film deal worth $200 million with Netflix. As both writers had commitments with Netflix, they ended up having to cancel the “Star Wars” films contracts with Lucasfilm and Disney.

It was made public in September of 2020 that Benioff, Alexander Woo, and Weiss would be the writers and executive directors of “The Three-Body Problem,” a Netflix series.

David Benioff’s Awards

David Benioff is one of the most successful writers in Hollywood. He has been nominated for several awards, including two Emmys and a Golden Globe. Benioff’s success is due in part to his unique approach to writing. He often starts with minimal detail and then builds the story around that. This approach has led to some truly memorable characters and plot lines.

From 2011 to 2019, David Benioff was nominated for Emmy awards in various categories like “Outstanding Drama Series” and “Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.” He received 6 Grammy awards for his drama series “Games Of Thrones.”

David Benioff was also nominated for the Writers Guild from 2012 to 2018.

David Benioff also received the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in the years 2012, 2013, and 2014.

David Benioff’s Personal Life and Family

Benioff married Amanda Peet in 2006. The couple has three children: Frances Pen Benioff (born in 2007), Molly June Benioff (born 2010), and Henry Peet Friedman (born in 2014). Amanda gifted their marriage with a child from a previous relationship, Harper (born 2006).

David and Amanda were very private, having been married for ten years before they made it public. Benioff, when receiving the Emmy award in 2016, publicly announced his marriage by calling his wife’s name on the show.

David Benioff’s Charitable Works

David Benioff auctioned off a chance to visit the “Game of Thrones” show’s set in Croatia. The proceeds from the auction benefited the Wildfire Fund, a charity created by Benioff and his wife Amanda Peet to help victims of wildfires.

The auction ran from November 26th to December 12th. Bidding for the chance to visit the “Game of Thrones” set started at $6,000.

David Benioff’s Interesting Facts

Here are some interesting facts about David:

• David Benioff net worth estimate is $100 million.
• Early in his career, Benioff was criticized for his work on the film “Troy.” Some argued that he had embellished historical facts to make the movie exciting. More recently, Benioff has come under fire for his work on “Game of Thrones.”

David Benioff’s Net Worth & Bio Summary

Name	David Benioff
Real Name	David Friedman
Age	51
Place of Birth	New York City, United States
Occupation	Author, screenwriter, executive producer, director
Net Worth Estimate	$100 million
Date of Birth	March 25, 1970
Nationality	American
Marital Status	Married