What Is Jonathan Nolan's Net Worth and Salary?
Jonathan Nolan is an English-American screenwriter, director, and producer who has a net worth of $75 million. Jonathan Nolan (also known as Jonah) is the brother of filmmaker Christopher Nolan. The two shared an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for the 2000 film "Memento."
The brothers also collaborated on the screenplays for the films "The Prestige" (2006), "The Dark Knight" (2008), "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012), and "Interstellar" (2014), which were all directed by Christopher.
Jonathan co-created the HBO series "Westworld" (2016–2022) with his wife, Lisa Joy, and the couple co-produced the 2021 film "Reminiscence." Nolan also created the CBS series "Person of Interest" (2011–2016), and he served as a writer, director, and executive producer on both "Person of Interest" and "Westworld." In April 2019, Jonathan and Lisa co-signed a five-year, $150 million overall deal with Amazon Studios. They were executive producers on the 2022 Amazon Prime Video series "The Peripheral." In July 2020, it was announced that Nolan and Joy would be developing a television adaptation of the video game franchise "Fallout" for Amazon Studios.
Early Life
Jonathan Nolan was born on June 6, 1976, in London, England. He is the son of an American mother, Christina, and a British father, Brendan, and he grew up with brothers Christopher and Matthew in a Catholic household. Christina worked as a flight attendant before becoming an English teacher, and Brendan was an advertising executive. During Jonathan's youth, the family lived in both London and Chicago. Nolan majored in English at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and he was a writer for the school's student newspaper "The Hoya." He graduated from Georgetown in 1999.
Career
Jonathan wrote a short story called "Memento Mori," which Christopher used as the basis for the award-winning 2000 film "Memento." Jonathan was given a "based on a story by" credit instead of a screenwriting credit, but the brothers shared an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay. In 2017, "Memento" was preserved in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Next, the Nolans co-wrote the 2006 film "The Prestige," which grossed $109.7 million against a $40 million budget. Jonathan wrote story springboards for the 2008 animated anthology film "Batman: Gotham Knight," and he collaborated with Christopher on the screenplays for the blockbusters "The Dark Knight" (2008) and "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012). "The Dark Knight" earned $1.006 billion at the box office, and it was surpassed by "The Dark Knight Rises," which brought in $1.081 billion. "The Dark Knight" received eight Academy Award nominations, and it was preserved in the National Film Registry in 2020. The brothers also teamed up for the screenplay for 2014's "Interstellar," which grossed $715 million and earned five Academy Award nominations.
Jonathan created the CBS series "Person of Interest," which ran from 2011 to 2016 and aired 103 episodes over five seasons. Nolan wrote nine episodes of the series and directed the 2013 episode "Relevance." The show earned him an Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination for Best Television Episode Teleplay for the episode "Return 0" in 2017. Jonathan and his wife, Lisa Joy, co-created the HBO series "Westworld," which premiered in October 2016 and ran for four seasons. The show received 14 Primetime Emmy nominations, including four for Nolan, and it won a Critics' Choice Television Award for Most Exciting New Series (2016), an IGN Award for Best TV Drama Series (2016), and a Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Television Series (2019). Jonathan wrote 13 episodes of "Westworld" and directed the episodes "The Original" (2016), "The Bicameral Mind" (2016), and "Parce Domine" (2020).
Amazon Deal
In 2019, Nolan and Joy signed a five-year, $150 million deal with Amazon Studios. Studio head Jennifer Salke said of the deal:
"Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy are two of the most talented and inventive creators in the business. They have mastered the art of working in tandem as well as individually on so many fantastic projects across film and television. They each bring their own unique storytelling abilities to the partnership, creating unforgettable characters in addictive and compelling worlds. We are ready to jump right in and can't wait to deliver their future projects to our Amazon Prime Video audience."
In 2022, the couple executive produced the Amazon Prime Video series "The Peripheral," and it was renewed for a second season in February 2023. The renewal was reversed in August 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.
Personal Life
Jonathan met writer/producer/director Lisa Joy at the "Memento" premiere, and they married in 2009. The couple has two children. Besides co-creating, producing, and writing for "Westworld," Joy has written for "Pushing Daisies" and "Burn Notice," and she wrote, directed, and produced the 2021 film "Reminiscence." Jonathan has said of the artistic differences between Christopher and himself, " I've always suspected that it has something to do with the fact that he's left-handed and I'm right-handed, because he is somehow able to look at my ideas and flip them around in a way that's just a bit more twisted and interesting. It's great to be able to work with him that way."
Awards and Nominations
In 2002, Nolan earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for "Memento." He received four Primetime Emmy nominations for "Westworld," Outstanding Drama Series (2017 and 2018), Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (2017), and Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series (2017). The series also earned him nominations from the Writers Guild of America Awards, PGA Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, International Online Cinema Awards, Gold Derby Awards, Edgar Allan Poe Awards, Dragon Awards, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. For "The Dark Knight," Jonathan won an Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, a Scream Award for Best Scream-Play, and a Golden Schmoes Award for Best Screenplay of the Year and received nominations from the International Online Cinema Awards (INOCA), Writers Guild of America Awards, Gold Derby Awards, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Hugo Awards, Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, Awards Circuit Community Awards, Online Film Critics Society Awards, and International Cinephile Society Awards.
"Memento" earned Nolan an Awards Circuit Community Award for Best Original Screenplay, a Bram Stoker Award for Screenplay, and the Sundance Film Festival's Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. He also won an Italian Online Movie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for "The Prestige" and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films' Saturn Award for Best Writing for "Interstellar." In 2019, Nolan was honored with the Visionary Award at the Visual Effects Society Awards.
