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Jason J Richter

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  famous for:
Free Willy (Film)

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  networth:
$500,000

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"I've had kids come to me and say, 'Oh, I loved your movie when I was a kid, and I became a marine biologist.' It's crazy."

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There was something about that trailer for Free Willy (1993). Even if you never saw the film, that shot of the whale leaping over the boy to escape was burned in your memory forever. It may not seem like a brilliant idea to spoil the ending of the film right in the trailer (and on the poster, and in the title, for that matter), but it worked for Free Willy. What people seem to forget, though, is that while the movie was a success, earning one hundred fifty three million on a twenty million dollar budget, it wasn't even one of the top ten films of the year. Remember, 1993 was the year of The Firm, Wayne's World 2, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the film that perhaps defined the era of the blockbuster that we still enjoy today, Jurassic Park. Still, while the movie's performance at the box office may not be as big as some of its competitors, it did its job of contributing a lasting image to the culture, and made Jason J. Richter famous.

Post-Willy Struggles

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While you might expect the star of Free WIlly to enjoy an easy life of constant movie work and stardom following the release of the film, the fact is that Jason J. Richter's career never really blew up after his immense debut. In 1994 he featured in the family crime comedy Cops and Robbersons as Kevin Robberson, and took over the role of Bastian in The Neverending Story III opposite a young Jack Black as an adult-aged school bully. He returned to the role of Jesse for two Free Willy sequels, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995) and Free Willy 3: The Rescue (1997), and landed a handful of TV roles, including a part on The Client (1996) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1997). He also contributed his voice to shows like Rugrats (1997). 

Maybe the problem with Free Willy was that Richter wasn't really the star of the film. When you bought your ticket to go to that movie, you were paying to see the whale. Of course you needed a human lead in there so that you could have a character that could deliver lines of dialogue, but the star was the whale and everyone knew it. So, while Richter stayed busy in film and television, he never really achieved the superstardom you might expect to follow such a major film.

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Today Richter continues to act and is reported to have a personal fortune of around half a million dollars. Five hundred thousand dollars isn't a bad nest egg, but it's not exactly movie star money either. Still, Richter is hardly down and out. He might not be a big movie star, but he's a working actor who recently featured in the films The Little Things (2020) and The Brawler (2019), with Amy Smart.

More Willy?

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In recent years we've seen the trend of rebooting classic movie series with the original cast. Kobra Kai on Youtube has proven successful, reuniting the cast of the original Karate Kid films, for instance. But it seems unlikely that Free Willy will inspire such a reboot. Again: The star is the whale, and fans of the movie don't have any special investment in the human characters from the films.

Even so, while Richter never became a superstar for playing with orcas onscreen, it has helped him to launch a successful career as an actor. Sometimes we forget, and it's worth mentioning: There's a difference between an actor and a movie star. Even in Hollywood, there are people just like the rest of us who are simply trying to pay the bills doing a job they like.

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"No one cared that I was the kid from Free Willy. You're not in some wispy fantasyland where everyone's telling you 'yes' all the time, which happens a lot to actors."

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