Leigh Whannell was born on the 17th January 1977, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and is a writer, producer, director, and actor, best known for writing and producing the Saw franchise, and also for writing “Dead Silence” (2007), “Insidious” (2011), and “Insidious: Chapter 2” (2013). Whannell’s career started in 1996.
Have you ever wondered how rich Leigh Whannell is, as of mid- 2017? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that Whannell’s net worth is as high as $55 million, an amount earned through his successful writing and producing career. Additionally, Whannell also works as an actor and director, which improves his wealth too.
Leigh Whannell Net Worth $55 Million
Leigh Whannell grew up in Australia, and inherited the love of film-making from his father; his mother introduced him to storytelling. Before he made it to the screen, Leigh worked as a film critic and reporter on numerous Australian shows.
In 1996, Whannell played in two episodes of the series “Neighbours”, while from 1999 to 2000, he appeared in a couple of episodes of “Blue Heelers”, a show about Victorian police officers.
Leigh had a minor role in The Wachowski Brothers’ sci-fi movie “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003) starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss, and in the same year, published his first short story called “Saw”, which was the platform for a full-length story and then James Wan’s horror movie with Whannell, Dany Glover, Cary Elwes, and Tobin Bell in lead roles. The franchise was born, and the film earned over $100 million worldwide, with only a $1.2 million budget, helping Whannell to increase his net worth significantly. The first part of the Saw series is the only one not produced by Leigh; he was the producer of the sequels, though.
The franchise grossed around $850 million from 2004 to 2010 on the big screen alone, while the books additionally improved Whannell’s wealth. In the meantime, Leigh had supporting roles in James Wan’s thriller “Death Sentence” (2007) alongside Kevin Bacon, John Goodman and Kelly Preston, and starred in the horror “Dying Breed” (2008), while in 2007, Whannell wrote a script for James Wan’s horror “Dead Silence”. It wasn’t as successful as predicted, but in 2010 Whannell wrote and starred in “Insidious” with Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, and Ty Simpkins. The movie became very popular in no time, and earned almost $100 million with a budget of only $1.5 million. This international hit was Whannell’s most fruitful work since “Saw”, until in 2013 the “Insidious: Chapter 2” came out and made over $160 million worldwide. It is only the beginning of a new Wan-Whannell franchise, and we can certainly expect more sequels.
In 2014, Leigh worked on the comedy-horror “Cooties” starring Elijah Wood, and then wrote and co-starred in the comedy called “The Mule” alongside Hugo Weaving. The third sequel of the Insidious franchise in 2015 was Whannell’s debut as a director, and he also wrote it, and starred in it with Dermot Mulroney and Stefanie Scott. The movie made more than $110 million, and at the moment in 2017, Leigh is working on the fourth part of the Insidious series, and the eighth sequel of the Saw series.
Regarding his personal life, Leigh Whannell has been married to Corbett Tuck since 2009, and has a daughter with her.
Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie: Scream Scene, Fright Meter Awards
Movies
Insidious: Chapter 3, Saw, Insidious, Insidious: Chapter 2, Cooties, Saw II, Saw III, Dead Silence, The Mule, Death Sentence, The Matrix Reloaded, Dying Breed, The Pardon, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, One Perfect Day, Crush, Keep Watching, Lavalantula, Insidious: Chapter 4, Knife o...
TV Shows
Recovery
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Quote
1
We've got three drops of convict blood in us, because we are from Australia. We are used to oppression.
2
All of a sudden, I'm on set and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I have to spend this whole film wet." Someone should have really told me but I can't say that because I wrote it.
3
I've been writing stories since I was a kid, and James and I had been talking about wanting to make a film for many years before this. Even though we wrote the film as a means to an end, so that James would have something to direct and I could have something to act in, it wasn't a slough for me to get through it because I love writing. It took me a long time only because I felt like it was all or nothing, that this script had to be good enough to compete at a world level. We didn't want it to be something that was something that was pretty good for a couple of guys from Melbourne. We wanted it to be a good film on a par with other independent films like Run, Lola, Run and Pi and Memento, these cool thrillers that had ticking-clock gimmicks to them. They're the type of films we wanted to be up there with. [on 'Saw']
4
I wouldn't say that was entirely non-deliberate. I do think men can be especially selfish, very focused on what they're doing. Women often the mother character in the film cares for the child more than she cares for herself, and just from my own point of view, I felt that the men in the film are more the type of people Jigsaw would have a major problem with. [on stereotypical roles for men and women in films and how it applied to his 'Saw']
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Fact
1
He is allergic to gluten.
2
Welcomed a daughter, named Sabine Silver, with wife Corbett Tuck in March 2013.
3
To help sell his concept for the jigsaw killer thriller Saw (2004), he shot a scene in which he appears to be ensnared in a bear trap. There were no special effects involved; he actually had to place the teeth of the rusty bear trap in his mouth to make it seem real.