I've read that JYC made about 23 million dollars on royalties from the aqualung. He also wrote about doing oil exploration and other commercial for money in his books. Pretty much all the proceeds, I believe, went into the work. One thing I respected about him was what I see as his fundamental honesty. He did fake sequences in his TV "documentaries," and when called on it he openly admitted it. (But hey, this isn't news footage. This is how films are made and anyone who thinks otherwise can stay in fairy land.) He objected to them being called "documentaries", since he saw them as what they were, loosely-based television reality shows. When he wrote about the same episodes in his books, the true story came out, really at odds with what we saw on the screen.
Times do change. Remember the first Undersea World on sharks in the mid 60's? They were slaughtering them on camera left and right. He also built undersea colonies with the hopes of helping man "exploit" the sea. On that too, the winds have changed, and later in life he thought we should protect rather than exploit.
I thought the treasure hunting episode was kind of a low blow in search of ratings. He always disavowed treasure hunting in his books.
Jean Michel was always a dark sheep. Never got along, was thrust into the role after Philippe died.
