Jonathan Taylor Thomas chose to quit Home Improvement when it was still on the air, and he might have missed the chance to receive a huge salary.
Fans wonder if Jonathan Taylor Thomas will act in the future. The actor was a huge deal in the 1990s, playing Randy Taylor on Home Improvement and Jake in the holiday movie I’ll Be Home For Christmas. He was the kind of young actor who got tons of attention for his good looks and who was plastered on the covers of teen magazines. It was a shock when, in 1998, he decided that he didn’t want to star on Home Improvement anymore. He didn’t appear in quite a few episodes of the sitcom.
The Home Improvement cast has high
net worths and Jonathan Taylor Thomas has $12 million. But is it possible that the actor could have made even more money if he kept playing Randy Taylor on Home Improvement?
How Much Money Did Jonathan Taylor Thomas Lose When He Left Home Improvement?
Sometimes when an actor is ready to leave a popular series, producers will come back to them with a deal: if they stay, they will be paid an even higher salary. Is this what happened with Jonathan Taylor Thomas? Did he decide that even if he could make millions, he would still walk away from Home Improvement?
Unfortunately, there is no information out there on whether Thomas was offered more money to stay on Home Improvement. Some sources put his Home Improvement salary at $8,000, at least at one time. That was definitely lower than what Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson were doing.
However, if season 9 of Home Improvement had happened, Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson would have been paid differently. And perhaps Jonathan Taylor Thomas would have been offered even less money than them.
Richardson was offered $30 million for season 9 and Allen was told that he could make $50 million. Because Thomas played one of the sitcom’s three kids, Randy, he might have been in a different pay bracket.
According to Us Weekly, Tim Allen didn’t understand Jonathan Taylor Thomas’s decision to quit such a popular series.
Back in 1999, Allen explained, “I was a little confused at why he didn’t want to do this whole year. He said it was about going to school, but then he did some films. Did he want to do films? Did he want to go to school? It got mixed up in the translation. I mentioned [publicly] that I was confused. I don’t think he liked that.”
Thomas started his career voicing Young Simba in the beloved 1994 movie The Lion King. In 1995, he starred in a few movies, including Tom and Huck and Man of the House. Tim Allen mentioned that Thomas starred in a few movies after quitting Home Improvement. He must have been referring to Common Ground, Walking Across Egypt, and Speedway Junky, which were all released in 1999.
Thomas also voiced a character in The Tangerine Bear: Home in Time for Christmas! which came out in 2000.
It’s possible that even if Jonathan Taylor Thomas was offered a ton of money to remain on Home Improvement, he knew that it was time to go. He was 17 at the time that he made this decision, and he must not have taken it slightly.v
