It’s ironic that Michael Moore is about to release a scathing documentary on capitalism considering how much he has personally has benefited from it. Moore’s last three movies; Bowling For Columbine, Fahrenheit 911 and have earned over $300 million at the box office. Considering these movies are very low budget compared to other major motion pictures, it’s not unreasonable to assume Moore was able to finance these movies almost entirely with his own money allowing him to retain a large portion of the DVD and theatrical profits. If you conservatively assume he has been entitled to 10% of his film’s proceeds that’s a tidy $30 million, that’s $19.5 million after taxes, and most insiders would agree that would be a very low ball estimate. The number could be grow to be much higher after the release of his latest movie Capitalism A Love Story, especially if he gets the same back end deal as he did for Fahrenheit. Consider this:

Fahrenheit shattered box office records for documentary films, raking in $228 million in theaters and another $3 million in DVD sales. After the theaters take their traditional 50% cut, that still leaves roughly $130 million. Take away marketing, production and distribution expenses and conservatively you are left with around $80 million. Moore was able to secure a sweetheart deal from Miramax guaranteeing him a reported 27% of the films net revenues, or roughly $21.6 million. Michael also was entitled to 50% of the profits of Sicko box office take and ALL of the profits made from DVD sales which are estimated to be $17 million.

Moore is also the author of several best selling books and was rumored to have received a $1 million advance for “Dude Where’s My Country” plus a generous percentage of the book sales.

Moore financed his first documentary Roger and Me by holding neighborhood bingo nights around his hometown of Flynt Michigan. He eventually sold the documentary to Warner Brothers for $3 million.

Moore was recently confronted about his high net worth at the premiere of Capitalism A Love Story: