How Nicolas Cage went broke: the dinosaur skull, the castles, and the $14 million hole
He made $150 million and spent it on castles, a stolen dinosaur skull, and the Shah of Iran’s Lamborghini. Then the housing crash wiped him out. Here’s how Nicolas Cage went broke, and how taking every movie he could find dug him back out.
Nicolas Cage once earned as much as $40 million a year. By 2009, he owed the IRS and creditors around $14 million and was facing foreclosure on multiple homes.
It’s one of Hollywood’s wildest money stories, part eccentric spending spree, part real-estate disaster. Here’s how one of the biggest stars on Earth went broke, and how he clawed his way back by saying yes to nearly every role he was offered.
First, the money he was making
To understand the fall, you have to grasp how high he was flying.
Through the late 1990s and 2000s, Cage was one of the most bankable actors alive. Between hits like Con Air, Face/Off, National Treasure, and Ghost Rider, he commanded up to $20 million a movie and, in his peak years, pulled in around $40 million annually. By the early 2000s, his estimated net worth hit roughly $150 million.
That’s an almost unimaginable amount of money. And almost as fast as it came in, it went out.
The legendary spending spree
Here’s where the story becomes pure Nicolas Cage, because the man did not buy normal things.
As his income climbed, his spending didn’t just keep pace, it exploded. Among his verified, genuinely real purchases:
A dinosaur skull. Cage reportedly outbid Leonardo DiCaprio for a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus skull, paying around $276,000. (It was later revealed to be stolen and had to be returned to Mongolia.)
Two castles. He bought a castle in Germany and another in England, partly, he said, while chasing a personal fascination with history and even the Holy Grail.
The “most haunted house in America.” He purchased the infamous LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans for about $3.4 million.
The Shah of Iran’s Lamborghini. A rare custom Lamborghini once built for the Shah of Iran, for roughly $450,000, one of many exotic cars. At one point he reportedly owned around 50 cars and dozens of motorcycles.
A fleet of yachts, including a $20 million superyacht, plus as many as 15 properties around the world.
A $150,000 comic book. A pristine copy of Action Comics #1, the first Superman comic. (This one, ironically, became a smart investment, more on that below.)
At his peak he was, by any measure, spending like a king who assumed the money would never stop.
What actually broke him
Here’s the part the “crazy purchases” lists often skip, and it’s the real story.
The castles and dinosaur skulls make for great headlines, but Cage himself points to a less colorful culprit: real estate. He’d poured enormous sums into property right before the 2008 housing market crashed.
“I was over-invested in real estate,” Cage explained on 60 Minutes. “The real estate market crashed, and I couldn’t get out in time.” When the market collapsed, the bulk of his fortune, much of it tied up in those 15 properties, was wiped out almost overnight.
On top of that, Cage sued his former business manager in 2009 for $20 million, claiming the manager had led him “down a path toward financial ruin” with negligent, risky investments and unpaid taxes. The manager, in turn, claimed he’d begged Cage to stop spending. The truth is likely somewhere in between: reckless spending and bad management and a once-in-a-generation market crash, all hitting at once.
The IRS comes calling
When the dust settled, the tax bill was staggering.
By 2009, between unpaid taxes, penalties, and creditors, Cage owed around $14 million, including multi-million-dollar IRS liens on his properties. He was, despite years of mega-paydays, genuinely broke and facing the loss of nearly everything he owned.
For a man who’d been worth $150 million, it was a stunning collapse. As Cage put it bluntly: “It was dark.”
How he dug himself out: work, work, and more work
This is the part that’s actually admirable, and a little heroic.
Cage didn’t file for bankruptcy. Instead, he did the only thing he knew how to do: he worked. Constantly. He started taking on a relentless schedule of movies, sometimes four a year, back to back, including a long run of direct-to-video and video-on-demand films that critics often savaged.
He’s been open about why. “I’ve got all these creditors and the IRS, and I’m spending $20,000 a month trying to keep my mother out of a mental institution, and I can’t,” he told an interviewer. “It was just all happening at once.” So he said yes to nearly everything, Ghost Rider sequels, Drive Angry, Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a flood of low-budget action flicks.
And crucially, he insists he never mailed it in. “Work was always my guardian angel,” Cage said. “It may not have been blue chip, but it was still work. Even if the movie ultimately is crummy, they know I’m not phoning it in, that I care every time.”
He sold off the empire, too
The relentless work was only half of it. He also liquidated the kingdom.
One by one, the trophies went: the castles, the yachts, the properties. In the most fitting twist of all, the Action Comics #1 he’d bought for $150,000 was stolen, recovered years later, and then sold at auction for nearly $2.2 million, a record at the time, with the proceeds going toward his debts. The Superman comic, of all things, helped save him.
By his own account on 60 Minutes, Cage paid back roughly $6 million and settled the rest, clearing his debts without ever declaring bankruptcy.
The comeback
Here’s the happy ending, because there is one.
All that grinding eventually paid off, in more ways than one. Not only did Cage clear his debts, but somewhere in that flood of films, critics and fans started noticing he was actually great again. Acclaimed indies like Mandy (2018) and Pig (2021) reminded everyone he’s a genuinely brilliant actor, and the 2022 comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, where he hilariously plays himself, completed the redemption arc.
Today, Cage is estimated to be worth around $25 million, a fraction of his old peak, but stable, debt-free, and respected again.
So how did Nicolas Cage go broke? He spent like a fantasy character, bet too big on real estate at the worst possible moment, and got caught in a perfect storm of bad luck and bad management. But the more interesting question is how he got un-broke, and the answer is almost boringly wholesome: he put his head down and worked his way out, one “crummy” movie at a time, refusing to phone in a single one. For all the castles and dinosaurs, the most Nicolas Cage thing about Nicolas Cage might just be that he out-worked his own disaster. And honestly, you have to respect it.
Want More Clownfish TV?
This article was brought to you in part by The Reefers of more.clownfishtv.com. Free subscribers get articles like this one in their inbox. Paid subscribers get the full Clownfish TV podcast feed, livestreams, and members-only episodes that never hit YouTube.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, watch @ClownfishTV on YouTube and find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeart.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
Hat Tips:
60 Minutes and IndieWire (2023), verified for Cage’s “over-invested in real estate,” “I paid them all back... about $6 million,” “never filed for bankruptcy,” “work was always my guardian angel,” and the “$20,000 a month... all happening at once” quotes
CBS News and Entrepreneur (2010-2025), verified for the ~$14 million owed to the IRS and creditors, the $20 million lawsuit against business manager Samuel Levin, the multiple property liens, and the “led down a path toward financial ruin” claim
Celebrity Net Worth and CNBC (2018-2024), verified for the $150 million peak fortune, the up-to-$40M-a-year earnings, the 15 properties, the LaLaurie Mansion, the dinosaur skull, the castles, and the current ~$25M net worth
Yahoo Finance and FinanceBuzz (2024-2025), verified for the Shah of Iran Lamborghini (~$450K), the Action Comics #1 purchase ($150K) and ~$2.2M record auction sale, the yacht details, and the Mandy/Pig/Unbearable Weight comeback