What Is Suzanne Collins' Net Worth?
Suzanne Collins is an American television writer and novelist who has a net worth of $90 million. Suzanne Collins is best known as the author of "The New York Times" best-selling series "The Underland Chronicles" and "The Hunger Games" trilogy ("The Hunger Games," "Catching Fire," and "Mockingjay"). Collins' books have sold over 85 million copies worldwide.
Early Life
Suzanne Collins was born on August 10, 1962, in Hartford, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Jane Brady Collins and Lieutenant Colonel Michael John Collins. Her father was a U.S. Air Force officer who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Suzanne is the youngest of four children. Although the military family was constantly moving, she spent her childhood in the eastern United States. In 1980, Collins graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham as a Theater Arts major. She earned her bachelor of arts degree from Indiana University Bloomington in 1985. She went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in dramatic writing from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 1989.
Early Career
In 1991, Collins began her professional career writing for children's television on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit "Clarissa Explains it All" and "The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo." She was a head writer for Scholastic's "Clifford's Puppy Days" and received a Writers Guild of America nomination in animation for co-writing the critically acclaimed Christmas special "Santa Baby." For preschool viewers, Suzanne authored multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated "Little Bear" and "Oswald." Most recently, she was a freelancer on "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!"
While working on a kid's WB show called "Generation O!," Suzanne met children's author and illustrator James Proimos, who talked her into giving children's books a try—and "Gregor the Overlander," the first book in her fantasy/war series "The Underland Chronicles," was born. Between 2003 and 2007, Collins wrote several books in this series: "Underland Chronicles," "Gregor the Overlander," "Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane," "Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods," "Gregor and the Marks of Secret," and "Gregor and the Code of Claw." During this time period, she also wrote a rhyming picture book, "When Charlie McButton Lost Power," about a boy obsessed with computer games. It was illustrated by Mike Lester and came out in 2005. It has been sold into four foreign territories.
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"The Hunger Games"
In September 2008, Collins released "The Hunger Games," the first book of a trilogy, through Scholastic Press. It was inspired partly by the Greek myth of Theseus. She was also inspired by her father's career in the Air Force, stating that she was given insight at an early age into poverty, starvation, and the devastating effects of war. The trilogy's second book, "Catching Fire," was released in September 2009, followed by "Mockingjay" in August 2010. Within 14 months, 1.5 million copies of the first two books were printed in North America alone. "The Hunger Games" sat on "The New York Times" Best Seller list for a cool 60 weeks in a row. Lions Gate Entertainment bought the worldwide distribution rights to a film adaptation of "The Hunger Games" in March 2009. Collins adapted the novel for film herself, along with screenwriter Billy Ray and director Gary Ross, thus the film adaptation was extremely faithful to the novel. The film, starring Jennifer Lawrence as main character Katniss Everdeen, was released on March 12, 2012. At the box office, it earned $408 million in the United States and Canada and $286.4 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $694.4 million.
The second and third books were also adapted into film, with the last book split into two films, for a total of four movies representing the best-selling novels. Collins was named one of "Time" magazine's most influential people of 2010 as a result of the immense popularity of "The Hunger Games" books. Amazon announced in March 2012 that Suzanne had become the best-selling Kindle author of all time and revealed that she had written 29 of the 100 most highlighted passages in Kindle ebooks.
In June 2019, Collins announced that she had written a prequel to "The Hunger Games" called "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." She released it on May 19, 2020. The book had a virtual launch due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The premise is based on the life of President Coriolanus Snow, 64 years before the events of "The Hunger Games" trilogy. By April 2020, Collins and Lionsgate Entertainment confirmed that plans were underway for a film adaptation of the book.
In September 2013, Suzanne released a critically acclaimed autobiographical picture book, "Year of the Jungle," illustrated by James Proimos. The book deals with the year she was six, and her father was deployed to Vietnam. The book has been sold in 12 territories in 11 languages.
Personal Life
Suzanne was married to Charles Pryor from 1992 to 2005. They welcomed two children, Charlie and Isabel.
