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According to Fitzgerald's records, he sold the "Gatsby" film rights to Hollywood in 1926 for $16,666.00.
According to an inflation calculator, today that amount would be equal to $219,174.85.
Baz Luhrmann's upcoming "Gatsby" has a production budget estimated at $127 million alone, while the 1974 film starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow has grossed $20,563,273 since its release.
Fitzgerald's Ledger documenting his film payments is part of the F Scott Fitzgerald collection in the Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C.
The ledger was meticulously divided into five sections: “Record of Published Fiction,” “Money Earned by Writing since Leaving Army,” “Published Miscelani (including movies) for which I was Paid,” “Zelda’s Earnings,” and “Outline Chart of my Life.”
Check out Fitzgerald's movie industry earnings, in chronological order, before commissions were taken:
- Head And Shoulders - $2,500.00
- Myra Meets His Family – $1,000.00
- The Off Shore Pirate – $2,250.00
- ‘Option on my output’ – $3,000.
- The Beautiful And Damned – $2,500.00
- This Side Of Paradise – $10,000.00
- The Camel’s Back – $1,000.00
- Grit – $2,000.00
- Titles for Glimpses Of The Moon – $500.00
- The Great Gatsby – $16,666.00
- ‘California work’ on Lipstick - $3,500 00
- ‘Additional Payment’ The Great Gatsby - $3,333.00
- ‘Treatment’ Metro Goldwyn Mayer – $6,000
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