‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’: We Tried Calculating Frank Reynolds’ Net Worth

“Nothing made me more money than businesses I sent into bankruptcy,” states business magnate and master schemer Frank Reynolds in the Season 15 premiere of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 

That’s pretty much Frank’s mantra, as the non-biological father of Dennis and Dee has made it his life’s work stripping businesses for profits and hustling his way through every absurd investment imaginable. Frank is rich, once calling himself a multi-millionaire in case anyone didn’t know, but just how much of a multi-millionaire is the guy who pays everything for everyone, and once donated money to an animal rights group — enough to “buy a zoo” — just so he could make a mockery out of them? 

Danny DeVito himself weighed in on this question, telling Money.com that internet folks are being conservative with their $50 million net worth estimation. “If you want to be honest about it, I love my peeps, and I do give a lot,” DeVito says about his character’s expenditures. “I am a socialist, basically, in Sunny. I support the bar, I support the gang, whatever they need. Even if it’s a prank, I’ll hire a private plane. My hand was never slow.” He continues talking about paying rent while living with Charlie, but that “it’s not a lot” and that he spends more money on “guilty pleasures” than the rest of the gang — “unless it’s, of course, Glenn (Dennis) wanting some fancy car. He’s gotta have his Range Rover.”

So, if $50 million is a conservative number, then what’s the guy — who once bought a mountain, charged other millionaires for exclusive resort membership and then used it as a cover to frack said mountain and “suck out its natural resources” — truly worth? 

Frank’s backstory is as wild as the schemes/crimes he gets up to with the gang. In the 1960s, our 20-something Warthog opened a nightclub with his brother, Gino, called Shadynasty’s. It was here, according to Frank, that he learned how to aggressively save as much of his yearly earnings as possible. In the 1970s, Frank worked for Gino’s cocaine business in Colombia, where we have no idea how much money he made, and given his love for nose candy, he probably doesn’t either. 

In 1980, Frank bought a mansion which, back then, would’ve cost him around $736,000 according to this estimation. Sometime after, he started a real estate company, only to screw over his partner and sell it for an estimated $16 million — profiting a little more than half of that amount. In 1993, he opened a sweatshop in Vietnam — “A lot of good men died in that sweatshop!” — and by 1985, Frank had around $13 million already saved in his bank account. He then founded Atwater Capital which, by all accounts (and jokes aside), was likely some kind of asset management company since Frank tells Charlie that, instead of making products, they make money.

It’s not clear how long Frank was CEO of Atwater, where he would’ve earned both a salary and his annual stockholder payouts, but we can assume that those millions kept growing in his bank. Frank eventually strips and sells Atwater Capital for “a shitload” of money in the return of the Warthog episode, “Frank Is Back in Business.” What we learn from this episode is that Brian Lefevre, the guy who owned the controlling stock of Atwater after Frank left, received an offer to sell the company for $31 million. We can assume that Frank ends up making close to the same amount when he instead sells Atwater to Japanese business interests, but there’s no way to know the actual number here. It should also be pointed out that, even though Lefevre is dead, Frank wouldn’t be able to sell the company without having the controlling shares, leading to a theory that Lefevre was a guy Frank hired to live in Canada and be Atwater’s frontman. Frank’s patsies, however, is an article for another day. 

All in all, it seems that by 2012, Frank already had $55 million in the bank(s) — probably more, since these calculations added tax reductions and DeVito unequivocally stated that Frank in no way pays taxes. Frank, of course, bought and co-owns Paddy’s Pub and the land it stands on, but that’s not really bringing in the big bucks. According to this calculation, Paddy’s Pub earns around $32,430 a year, which is less than the average salary of a bar manager in Philadelphia today. Not to mention that the bar didn’t see a lot of action during the COVID lockdown, but hey, it’s nice when your business and favorite hangout is funded by your dad’s money laundering schemes infinite pockets.

DeVito pointed out that Frank not only stocks the bar but uses his investment with Wolf Cola (owned by his company, Frank’s Fluids) to up the bar sales. Of course, Wolf Cola was originally a money laundering front until Frank started selling the soft drink “by the truckload” to not Boca Raton, but Boko Haram.

Frank’s Fluids sold both Wolf Cola and Charlie and Mac’s diabolical sports drink, Fight Milk. The latter proved popular with UFC fighters, at least for a while. Logan Paul’s official UFC sports drink, Prime, was launched in 2022 and made $250 million in retail sales, grossing $110 million during its first year on the market. While none of the gang is as internet famous as Paul, it’s also safe to say that this side hustle adds to Frank’s pile of cash, especially since he most definitely isn’t paying a dime in taxes here.

It’s Always Sunny… doesn’t give us consistent timelines or provide time periods for many of these ventures, making it difficult to know exactly how long Frank was pocketing how much cash from whichever venture. The only thing consistent, however, is his ability to keep making money — and lots of it. He can rent a private jet whenever he likes, and once paid for one to fly Dee over Philly for six hours just to prank her. A flight like that could cost anywhere between $25K and $60K today. He bought a Lamborghini Countach to annoy Dee and Dennis (one that’s probably a Fiero-based replica). 

One seller of a similar Lambo put it up on eBay for $76,000 in 2022, but others that are in as good a shape as Frank’s “Shitbird” can go for around $49,900, depending on the seller. A non-Fiero, non-replica Countach averages $268,466 on auction sales, and can go up to $1.8 million. 

Frank forked over a couple of grand so the kids could make Lethal Weapon 7, and he once gave Dee and Dennis a check for a cool $8 million because that number means nothing to him. He could easily afford a Super Bowl LII box suite in Minnesota that went for anywhere between  $175K and $665K that year, and he offered to buy the Philadelphia Soul Arena Football team for $60 million, even though it was a front to talk to Jon Bon Jovi. 

It’s safe to say that the man with a love for blow and “hoors” is definitely worth more than a $100 million at this point. That number is, in all likelihood, still conservative, because it could easily exceed $200 million. After all, he also fracked a freaking mountain in Pennsylvania, where gas royalties and leases can bring in between $8,000 and $35,000 a month, depending on the land. Given that Frank’s fracking land is a freaking mountain, we’d say he not only coined in royalties, but probably made deals to score even more moolah in the process.

And yet, no matter how rich he is, Frank Reynolds will always be the guy who will exploit any opportunity, like taking out a PPP loan during a global pandemic to fund his dumb new hair dye business and, in the process, somehow make a public fool out of Rudy Giuliani.