Topics: Books, Celebrity, Film and TV, Money
She might be best known for playing a ditsy lawyer in Legally Blonde, but Reese Witherspoon has a genius way of making millions.
Though she made the bulk of her fortune from appearing in films like Walk The Line and Cruel Intentions, the A-Lister has also taken to producing as well.
In fact, Witherspoon has a very tactical way of choosing the movies - which has majorly boosted her bank balance in recent years.
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After appearing as the iconic Elle Woods, the actor reprised her role and became a producer on the highly anticipated sequel.
While it wasn’t as successful as the original Legally Blonde, which made over $125.9 million, the experience made Witherspoon want to take on more projects and setting up the production company Pacific Standard in 2012.
In recent years, she's even worked on films and TV shows with strong female characters such as Big Little Lies and Wild.
However, it isn’t just feminism that drives the star to pick these scripts as the Louisiana native actually coming up with an insanely clever selection method.
Rather than waiting for the right project, Witherspoon will discuss yet-to-be-released novels with publishers and offer to promote them through her book club.
Speaking about her clever business model to Variety, she said: “I let it be known I wanted to see material… And because we’re specifically looking for female-driven properties, I don’t think a lot of other companies were out there doing that.”
The huge sales then generated by her book club, which has over 2.5 million subscribers, will then help her negotiate the rights to adapt any popular novels to film and TV.
If that weren’t clever enough, she will also use her book club to test which novel is ‘best’ to turn into yet more lucrative content.
The cycle then repeats, with money from her various productions going back to the book club and well, you get the idea.
Rather impressively, Witherspoon reportedly managed to gain access to Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl before it hit the shelves in 2012.
With the gripping thriller then adapted by David Fincher - and Witherspoon in the producer chair - the 2014 film won multiple awards and was a huge hit for the producer’s studio.
It’s meant that the mom-of-three has a staggering $440 million to her name, according to Forbes, and that figure only set to rise as she adapts more books.
You go girl!
