Highlights
- Harrison Ford's divorce from Melissa Mathison was one of the most expensive in show business, with Mathison receiving an $85 million settlement and a portion of Ford's future earnings.
- Ford's pay for his early roles, such as Han Solo in Star Wars, was significantly lower compared to his later films, but he eventually earned a base salary of $15 million for Episode VII - The Force Awakens.
- Ford's second wife, Melissa Mathison, was a successful screenwriter known for her work on movies like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and their two children have pursued careers in the entertainment industry.
Nearly seven years after they filed for divorce, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are on their way to racking up the most expensive divorce legal fees in Hollywood. But before them, there was Harrison Ford and his costly divorce from the late Melissa Mathison.
In 2004, the Star Wars actor reportedly paid a fortune in the settlement — one of the largest known in show business. Here's the real story behind their pricey divorce.
Updated September 11th, 2023: Harrison Ford is now happily married to Calista Flockhart. The two started dating in 2002 when Ford and Mathison's divorce was underway. After dating for seven years, Ford proposed to Flockhart in 2009 and they got married the following year.
Harrison Ford seems happier than ever with Calista Flockhart. The couple is often seen together at premiers and award shows.
How Expensive Was Harrison Ford And Melissa Mathison's Divorce?
Ford and Mathison didn't have a prenuptial agreement. As a result, the latter received an $85 million divorce settlement. She also negotiated to receive some portion of her ex-husband's future earnings from Indiana Jones and The Fugitive, which the actor filmed during their marriage.
At the time of their divorce, the Six Days Seven Nights star was one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, making $20 million per movie.
But when he was starting as Hans Solo in Star Wars, Ford was just paid $1,000 per week. He only made a total of $10,000 in Episode IV - A New Hope. That's worth nearly $49,000 today. The actor was clearly underpaid. In Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, he was given a massive pay raise. He was paid $100,000 for the film, which is worth about $490,000 today. It's still pretty low as the film made over $500 million at the box office.
In 2015, during his return for Episode VII - The Force Awakens, he received a base salary of $15 million, plus a small percentage of the box office earnings. He then earned a total of $25 million from the movie. Though it's obviously a huge increase, the film grossed $2.068 billion, making Ford's paycheck a mere 1% of the total box office earnings. Thanks to his other projects over the years, the 80-year-old Ford is now worth $300 million. His second wife, Mathison had a net worth of $100 million at the time of her death.
Who Was Harrison Ford's Ex-Wife Melissa Mathison?
Mathison was Ford's second wife and was married to the actor for 18 years. But she was more than just his partner at that time. Mathison was the screenwriter of Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In November 2015, Mathison died at age 65 from neuroendocrine cancer. A month later, Spielberg recalled the time he first met the then-"failed" writer. "Like a mirage in Lawrence of Arabia," he shared.
"That's what it was like the first time I set eyes on Melissa. We were shooting Raiders. It was in 1980, in the unbearable heat of Nafta in Tunisia, and amidst a couple of hundred Arab extras dressed in German uniforms, I saw what looked like an egret."
"And I said, 'Well, what do you do?'" Spielberg remembered. "She told me, 'Currently, I’m a failed writer.' I began to laugh and she began to laugh. Then I said, 'What have you failed at?' She said she had written a number of scripts that she wasn't really happy with, and only one got made. When I realized she had written The Black Stallion, it stopped me in my tracks because it's one of my favorite movies. Then I started asking her a lot of questions about The Black Stallion."
He then talked about his "story about this alien that gets stuck on Earth with a family of divorce," and asked if she'd like to write it with him. Though Mathison thought it was "really sweet and interesting," she said that she had already "retired" from writing. Ford eventually convinced her to take the job. When he came to work the next day, he told Spielberg, "I think she's had a change of heart."
Did Harrison Ford Have Any Children With Melissa Mathison?
Ford had two children with Mathison: Malcolm, 35, and Georgia, 32. Like his father, Malcolm is in the entertainment industry. He's the lead singer of The Dough Rollers. The band has previously opened for acts like Bob Dylan and Queens of the Stone Age. Speaking to Interview Magazine in 2013, the guitarist shared what inspired him to pursue music.
"I didn't grow up with music in the house, like every kid had Blackbird playing when they got home from school or something," he said. "My mom would have Wagner on sometimes, but I got into punk music first. My first cassette was Green Jellÿ. That was the band I was really into."
Georgia, on the other hand, followed in her dad's footsteps and became an actress. She was in the 2013 film American Milkshake, 2015's True Story, and the 2020 anthology of short films I'm Being Me. Though her dad keeps their family life private, he's been an active advocate for people suffering from epilepsy as Georgia was diagnosed with it as a child. In 2016, Ford auctioned off his famous Han Solo jacket for epilepsy research in honor of his daughter.