At Sunday night’s Oscars, fan-favorite Sinners scored big, securing four wins. The horror film’s star Michael B. Jordan claimed the best actor title, while its director, Ryan Coogler, took home the award for best original screenplay. Yet just a decade before this $365 million global box office hit dominated the awards ceremony, its director was buried under student loan debt.
“I had $200,000 in debt from film school. It was really tough,” Ryan Coogler shared on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast last April. “We weren’t from a wealthy background.”
It was 2015, and Coogler stood on the cusp of breakthrough success—though his financial situation didn’t reflect it.
By then, the director had already crafted the critically acclaimed Fruitvale Station with Jordan. With the A-list actor as his inspiration, the up-and-coming filmmaker tackled the challenging task of creating a Rocky spinoff series, also starring Jordan: Creed.
He began production on the first installment of the series, which went on to earn $42.6 million in its opening weekend, despite a $35 million budget.
Still, the $200,000 in student loans from his time at Southern California’s School of the Cinematic Arts remained a heavy financial burden. “I wasn’t making any money,” he added.
How Ryan Coogler transitioned from $200K in debt to a $25M net worth
The 39-year-old director’s success with Creed marked the first of many triumphs: Creed II and Creed III also exceeded box office expectations; Black Panther and its sequel Wakanda Forever grossed well over $2 billion globally; Judas and the Black Messiah received multiple Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations; and the four-time Oscar-winning Sinners brought in at least $365 million worldwide.
While Coogler hasn’t confirmed if his student debt has been fully paid off, he’s long past fretting over repayment plans.
After creating some of the biggest superhero and sports films, his net worth is estimated at around $25 million. None of this might have happened if Coogler hadn’t confided in his then-girlfriend—now wife—about how his creative writing teacher recognized his potential as a screenwriter.
“[My wife] bought me screenwriting software, Final Draft,” Coogler said. “I discovered something I truly loved.”
The world’s most successful people often have rags-to-riches stories
Coogler’s start as an up-and-coming creator burdened by debt isn’t an unusual tale. Many of the world’s most successful individuals have their own stories of overcoming humble beginnings to achieve success.
Television icon Oprah Winfrey, known for her lavish audience giveaways and substantial $3.2 billion net worth, grew up in extreme poverty in rural Mississippi, raised by a single mother. Even after discovering her passion for radio at 17, she faced doubt about her ability to anchor, being deemed “unfit for television.” Her demotion from news to daytime TV, however, proved a turning point, launching The Oprah Winfrey Show, which earned $300 million annually at its peak. By negotiating ownership of the series in 1986, Winfrey ensured her struggles with poverty were firmly in the past.
Forever 21 cofounder and CEO Do Won Chang also faced a rocky start before striking major success. He and his wife, Jin Sook, immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea, with their first jobs in L.A. being dishwashing at a coffee shop and working at a gas station on the side. Noticing that men driving the most stylish cars often worked in fashion, Chang took a job at a clothing store, kickstarting his $81 billion journey with the industry.
“I arrived here with almost nothing,” Chang said in a 2016 Forbes interview. “I’ll always feel grateful to America for the opportunities it’s given me.”
Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, now worth nearly $9.2 billion, had a vastly different past—once teetering on homelessness in his twenties. In 2007, unable to afford rent, Chesky and his roommates devised a plan that would birth his empire: converting their apartment into a bed-and-breakfast, using air mattresses to host guests. Today, the CEO’s short-term rental company is valued at $78 billion.
“We’re conditioned to avoid risks at all the wrong moments. Right after college, we’re told to play it safe,” Chesky wrote in 2014. “But that’s not how life works, and it’s a flawed approach to risk. Inevitably, priorities shift as we age.”
A version of this story was published on .com on April 28, 2025.