[shiroiushi]

Maybe his movies made a good amount of money, he personally got a big paycheck from those, and then just invested it and lived off that in a frugal manner.

For a lot of people, if you put $1M in their bank account, they could live off that comfortably for quite a long time, as long as they don't succumb to lifestyle inflation.

[atombender]

Of course. Gans did not produce the film, but it's possible he got points off the gross, of course; not sure how common that is in the French film industry.

I'm also thinking about other directors who have long periods of silence. I assume that often these gaps are filled with script doctor work, canceled projects (which nevertheless provide some paid work), commercials, and other side gigs. Todd Field had a 15-year gap between Little Children and Tár, and he clearly was busy with other things. But many directors have big gaps in their filmographies without any such obvious activity.

[shiroiushi]

Yes, most people here are probably salaried workers with little or no exposure to the film industry, so we have little understanding how it works, but you're right, these kind of people probably have a lot of other paying work they do that isn't as obvious as directing a full-length movie.