Matt Stone Net Worth 2024

What is Matt Stone’s Net Worth?

Matt Stone is an American actor, author, producer, and animator who has a net worth of $700 million. Matt Stone earned his fortune because the co-creator of Comedy Central collection “South Park.” He created the present in 1997 with college buddy and classmate Trey Parker.

The duo has additionally labored collectively on the movies “Cannibal! The Musical” (1993), “Orgazmo” (1997), “BASEketball” (1998), “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” (1999), and “Team America: World Police” (2004), the 2001 Comedy Central collection “That’s My Bush!,” and the 2020 internet collection “Sassy Justice.”

Matt and Trey co-created the smash hit Broadway musical “Book of Mormon,” which received 9 Tonys in 2011 and has grossed over $500 million from ticket gross sales, merchandise, and extra.

Stone voices quite a few characters on “South Park,” together with Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Butters Stotch, and he voiced a number of characters in “Team America: World Police.” He additionally performed James Humphrey in “Cannibal! The Musical,” Dave the Lighting Guy in “Orgazmo,” and Doug Remer in “BASEketball,” and he appeared within the movies “Run Ronnie Run!” (2002) and “Electric Apricot: Quest for Festeroo” (2007). Matt has served as a producer on many Parker-Stone initiatives in addition to the Canadian TV collection “Kenny vs. Spenny” (2007–2008) and MTV’s “How’s Your News?” (2009).

On August 5, 2021 it was revealed that Matt and Trey had signed a brand new six-year, $900 million contract with ViacomCBS. Under the deal Matt and Trey will produce six seasons of the present and 14 films which will probably be unique to streaming service Paramount+.

Early Life

Matt Stone was born Matthew Richard Stone on May 26, 1971, in Houston, Texas. He grew up in Littleton, Colorado, with mom Sheila, father Gerald (an economics professor), and youthful sister Rachel. Sheila and Gerald would later change into the names of Kyle Broflovski’s mother and father on “South Park.” Matt attended Heritage High School, and after commencement, he enrolled on the University of Colorado Boulder. He majored in arithmetic and movie, incomes a Bachelor of Arts diploma in 1993. After assembly Trey Parker in a movie class, the 2 started making brief movies collectively, together with “Man on Mars” and “First Date.”

Career

In 1992, Matt and Trey based the Avenging Conscience manufacturing firm with Jason McHugh and Ian Hardin, and so they made the brief movie “Jesus vs. Frosty” utilizing development paper cutouts. The brief is also referred to as “The Spirit of Christmas,” together with their 1995 brief “Jesus vs. Santa,” and it  marks the primary look of the boys who would change into Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman. Parker, Stone, McHugh, and Hardin made a trailer for “Alferd Packer: The Musical,” a movie about “The Colorado Cannibal,” and it was so standard amongst their fellow University of Colorado Boulder college students that the chairman of the college’s movie division satisfied them to develop it into an precise film. Matt labored on the movie as a author, actor, and producer, and it was retitled “Cannibal! The Musical” after it was bought to Troma Entertainment in 1996. The movie has change into considerably of a cult phenomenon, and a stay stage model has been carried out by quite a few theatre firms.

Parker and Stone moved to Hollywood and spent the following few years struggling even if that they had an agent, lawyer, and script deal. Matt wrote and produced “Orgazmo” with Trey, who directed the film, and after it premiered on the Toronto International Film Festival in 1997, October Films purchased the rights for $1 million. After producer Brian Graden noticed “Jesus vs. Frosty,” he requested the duo to create a video greeting card for him to ship to his associates; the end result was “Jesus vs. Santa,” and Comedy Central government Doug Herzog favored it a lot that he requested them to develop it right into a collection. Parker and Stone made the pilot for $300,000, and Comedy Central’s advertising and marketing of the present earned the community roughly $30 million in t-shirt gross sales earlier than the present even aired. As of this writing, “South Park” has aired greater than 300 episodes over 23 seasons and spawned the film “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” (which grossed $83.1 million on the field workplace), the albums “Chef Aid: The South Park Album” (1998) and “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics” (1999), and several other video video games, corresponding to “South Park: The Stick of Truth” (2014) and “South Park: The Fractured however Whole” (2017).

In 2002, Matt and Trey started engaged on an R-rated puppet movie, “Team America: World Police,” which they co-wrote and co-produced. Stone mentioned of the expertise, “It was the worst time of my whole life – I by no means need to see a puppet once more.” During the manufacturing of “Team America,” the duo started engaged on “The Book of Mormon” with writer-composer Robert Lopez, who co-created “Avenue Q.” The musical opened on Broadway on March 24, 2011, with Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad within the lead roles of Elder Price and Elder Cunningham. “The Book of Mormon” earned 14 Tony nominations, greater than every other Broadway present acquired that 12 months, and it received 9 of them. In 2013, Parker and Stone introduced that they have been launching a manufacturing studio known as Important Studios, saying, “Having labored with a number of completely different studios over time, we got here to appreciate that our favourite individuals on this planet are ourselves.” During the Covid-19 pandemic, Matt and Trey launched two “South Park” specials, 2020’s “The Pandemic Special” and 2021’s “South ParQ Vaccination Special,” and co-created the deepfake expertise internet collection “Sassy Justice.” Stone has mentioned of the online collection, “Before the massive scary factor of coronavirus confirmed up, everybody was so afraid of deepfakes. We simply wished to make enjoyable of it as a result of it makes it much less scary.”

Digital Contract

Back in 2007, Matt and Trey’s Comedy Central contract was up for renewal. When the ink was dry, the duo landed a brand new deal that’s thought of unprecedented in Hollywood. The deal allowed them to create a digital hub for every thing associated to South Park, together with streaming episodes. Most importantly although, it gave them a 50% minimize of all advert income generated by the present, digital or broadcast. As a results of this unprecedented contract, Parker and Stone earn an estimated $25-30 million per 12 months EACH simply from the printed of the present on Comedy Central. They additionally get a 50% minimize any time the present is bought into syndication, like in 2015 when Hulu paid $198 million for the streaming rights or in 2019 when South Park’s streaming rights have been put in the marketplace for $500 million. Each transaction earned the duo a 50% minimize (25% every).

An Extremely Valuable Contract Clause

How have been they in a position to land such a candy deal? It all stems again to a loophole of their very first Comedy Central contract from 1997. Back then, nobody may have imagined that the digital rights to a property may ever change into helpful. Well, nobody besides Matt, Trey, and an especially forward-thinking lawyer. That lawyer included a clause within the authentic contract which said that the creators would obtain a 50% minimize of any income generated other than the precise present’s tv broadcast. For round twenty years, that clause was basically nugatory. That all modified with the appearance of YouTube and different video streaming platforms.

Viacom briefly tried to argue their means out of the clause, however ultimately, Parker and Stone have been profitable in not solely proudly owning a 50% minimize of non-broadcast income but additionally in having the best to distribute the present digitally as they noticed match. Once they noticed their present being pirated continuous on YouTube, Matt and Trey determined it could be pointless to combat the pirates, in order that they put each single episode on-line without spending a dime, incomes thousands and thousands from the digital advert income. They actually began to money in with the appearance of streaming providers like Hulu. When Hulu paid $192 million for 4 years of rights to the again catalogue, Matt and Trey every earned round $50 million. At the time, is was the biggest streaming deal in historical past. In 2019 when the deal was up, HBO Max obtained unique streaming rights in a deal that was rumored to be value $500 million-$550 million.

Merchandise

Viacom/Comedy Central was smarter when it got here to merchandise rights. From the present’s inception, Viacom has had a lion’s share of merchandise rights, reportedly as excessive as 90%. That might need been re-negotiated in current contracts, however the present phrases haven’t been mentioned publicly.

Personal Life

Matt met Comedy Central government Angela Howard in 2001, and so they married in 2008. The couple has two youngsters. Parker and Stone usually poke enjoyable at faith of their work, and Matt is a “self-described atheist.”

Awards and Nominations

Stone has been nominated for 18 Primetime Emmys for “South Park,” profitable Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour) in 2005, 2007, and 2009, Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More) in 2008, and Outstanding Animated Program in 2013. “South Park” has additionally earned Matt a CableACE Award for Animated Programming Special or Series and a PGA Award for Most Promising Producer in Television. “The Book of Mormon” received 9 Tonys, together with Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. The musical additionally earned a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album in addition to honors from Drama Desk Awards and the Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Stone received a NAVGTR Award for Writing in a Comedy for the online game “South Park: The Stick of Truth,” an MTV Movie Award for Best Musical Performance for “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Animation for “The Spirit of Christmas,” and Matt and Trey have been introduced with the Maverick Filmmakers Award on the 2003 Santa Monica Film Festival. Stone has additionally earned nominations from the Annie Awards (Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production for “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut”), Behind the Voice Actors Awards (Best Male Vocal Performance in a Video Game in a Supporting Role for “South Park: The Stick of Truth”), Gemini Awards (Best Comedy Program or Series for “Kenny vs. Spenny”), and Online Film & Television Association (Best Voice-Over Performance and Best Voice-Over Performance in a Animated Program for “South Park”).

Real Estate

In 2005, Matt spent $3.5 million on a 3,000 sq. foot house in Venice, California. He listed this house on the market in January 2020 for $4.5 million. He owns a smaller property close by, which he purchased in 2003 for $800,000. In 2008, he spent $5.15 million to purchase a whole ground of a New York City constructing, and he bought the property for $6.15 million in April 2019.