Let’s face it: we’re all a little interested in celebrity rich lists. It’s cool to see how much -- or how little -- our favorite actors and musicians have to show for their work. But who are the richest fictional characters?
It can be tricky to calculate that. For one thing, we’re rarely explicitly told; for another, it often seems as if fictional characters are as rich or as poor as their writers need them to be in any given circumstance.
However, our friends at the UK lottery site Lottoland recently did a deep dive into fictional finances. They made some pretty interesting estimates as to which of our favorite non-existent people (and dragons and ducks) are raking in the most cake.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the 10 richest fictional characters.
10. Charles Montgomery Burns
Estimated net worth: $1.24 billion
From The Simpsons
Monty Burns is the archetypal evil rich guy. But Mr. Burns was not born affluent. He lived a charmed but simple life with his parents in the late 1880s until he was adopted by his wealthy grandfather. It was his grandfather who turned him into the money-grubbing villain we know and love.
Mr. Burns’ net worth stems largely from his ownership of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.
9. Tywin Lannister
Estimated net worth: $1.48 billion
From Game of Thrones
Tywin Lannister is Lord of Casterly Rock and governor of the Westerlands in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire universe. The presence of vast gold mines in his territories has made him the wealthiest person in the world -- well, his world, anyway.
Tywin’s net worth would be even higher if 1) his gold mines hadn’t run dry, 2) his children were less extravagant, and 3) he hadn’t loaned so much money to people who can’t or won’t pay it back.
8. Christian Grey
Estimated net worth: $2.09 billion
From Fifty Shades of Grey
Christian Grey is the tortured, sexy rich guy at the heart of the Fifty Shades of Grey books. He built his fortune by investing $100,000 that was given to him by a friend of his mother. (She seduced him, so he at least kind of deserved the pay-out.)
He presumably spends most of his money having uncomfortable liaisons with Anastasia Steele, the protagonist of the stories.
7. Richie Rich
Estimated net worth: $4.82 billion
From Richie Rich
Any kid who has his own private McDonald’s must be making serious bank. Richie is famously the world’s richest kid, but that can’t buy him friends. He’s isolated both from children his own age and from his tycoon father, who mostly leaves him in the care of his butler Herbert Cadbury.
Money can’t buy you happiness!
6. Bruce Wayne
Estimated net worth: $7.78 billion
Image by Craig Steffan from Pixabay
From the DC Universe
Finally, someone who actually puts their fortune toward productive ends. After witnessing the murder of his parents as a young man, Bruce decided to create the alter ego Batman in order to fight crime.
Meanwhile, to the masses, he is just Bruce Wayne, multi-billionaire industrialist. He creates a false image of himself as a playboy and a bit of a dim bulb in order to allay suspicions about his true identity. In reality, he’s one of the few people on this list actually committed to making the world a better place.
5. Charles Foster Kane
Estimated net worth: $9.51 billion
From Citizen Kane
Charles Foster Kane is the tragic hero of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. His upbringing was impoverished until a mine owned by his parents was found to be rich in gold. Young Charles was then sent away to make something of himself.
He founded his own media empire, swearing to adhere to principles of integrity and decency. But he gradually falls away from these promises, succumbing to vanity and ambition, and alienating himself from those who once loved him.
It’s widely believed that Kane was based on William Randolph Hearst.
4. Jed Clampett
Estimated net worth: $9.8 billion
From The Beverly Hillbillies
Jed Clampett was a poor mountain man until surveyors found a huge reserve of oil on his modest property. Flush with the revenues, Clampett moves with his extended family to Beverly Hills -- hence The Beverly Hillbillies. Despite his newfound wealth, Clampett remains a down-to-earth, moral, and sensible person.
3. Tony Stark
Estimated net worth: $10.5 billion
From the Marvel Universe
Tony Stark is similar to Bruce Wayne in some respects. He’s a brilliant scientist and business magnate. His story really begins when he’s kidnapped and forced to design a weapon of mass destruction. Instead, he builds his Iron Man suit to evade his captors.
Like Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark uses his vast resources to fight evil in a superhero suit. Unlike Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark does ultimately ‘come out’ as Iron Man.
2. Smaug
Estimated net worth: $52.37 billion
From The Hobbit
It’s hard to estimate the wealth of someone -- let alone a dragon -- living in Middle Earth. How do the currencies translate? And just how much treasure is Smaug sleeping on anyway?
It may be hard to say, exactly, but he's clearly among the richest fictional characters. Smaug invaded the Dwarven kingdom of Erebor, and resided there for 150 years before a troop of thieves came to bother him. In that time, he had control of the vast fortune in weapons, armor, and gold that the dwarves had mined.
In typical dragon fashion, however, he didn’t enjoy his wealth one bit. Instead, he seems to have spent the majority of his time sleeping on piles of treasure. Use it or lose it, Smaug.
1. Scrooge McDuck
Estimated net worth: $54.47 billion
From the Disney Universe
Finally, we come to the richest duck in the world. And the richest fictional character of any species in any world, according to estimates.
It’s only fitting. The image of Scrooge McDuck diving into his vast vault has become a powerful image in our collective consciousness. This rather silly old Scotch duck is a byword for extreme, even excessive wealth.
Also cheapness: Scrooge never passes up an opportunity to expand his fortune through adventure -- or to cut corners.
Along with his great-nephews Huey, Dewie, and Louie, he is also the uncle of Donald Duck himself.
