And the Award for Best Entrepreneur Goes to Sandra Bullock

Sandra Bullock may have been thrilled that she “finally wore them down” after winning the Oscar for Best Actress in “The Blind Side,” but she will have plenty of work to fall back on if her acting career ever falters.

Bullock, 45, has turned out to be quite the entrepreneur at the same time she has built her acting career. After co-starring with Keanu Reeves in the movie, “Speed,” in 1994, Bullock formed Fortis Films in 1996 with her sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado, and father, John Bullock (her sister has since left and opened a pastry shop in Montpelier, Vermont.).

The actress also owns two businesses in Austin, Texas: a restaurant, Bess Bistro, and Walton's Fancy and Staple, a bakery and floral shop. In 2005, Bullock married Jesse James, founder of West Coast Choppers, a celebrity motorcycle manufacturing facility in Long Beach, Calif.

Bullock’s Fortis Films has made nine films, including box office hits “Miss Congeniality” and “Two Weeks Notice,” but Bullock also snagged a Razzie award for making the worst movie this year, “All About Steve.”

The production company currently has four projects in development, including one about Santa’s “nastiest elf” who must reform an incorrigible brat before returning to the North Pole.

Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com, said that would-be financiers care more about box office track record than Oscar wins, but Bullocks’ possession of both will likely lure more of them to her projects—particularly if she stars in them.

“With or without the Oscar, I think she has proven that she has her finger on the pulse of what audiences want—‘All about Steve’ notwithstanding,”Dergarabedian said. “Not every film can be a hit, but chances are better if she’s in it, because she has very bankable stats.”

The production company’s first film was “Hope Floats,” grossing $60 million at the box office, and the biggest draws yet have been for “Miss Congeniality,” which grossed $107 million, and “Two Weeks Notice,” $93.3 million. Bullock was also an executive producer of TV’s The George Lopez Show, in which she received $10 million from a syndication deal.

One project that got away was based on F.X. Toole's short story about a female boxer, “Million-Dollar Baby,” which was eventually adapted by others and made into the film, “Million Dollar Baby” directed by Clint Eastwood.

Of the company’s four projects currently in development, Bullock is slated to be the star in two, with the working titles, “The Sprinkler Queen” and “One of the Guys.”

While Fortis Films is a privately held company whose financials are not published, Dergarabedian said she is well-respected as a producer and with her credentials, could also move into directing. Bullock has also acted in 39 movies and six TV shows, including starring in last year’s “The Proposal.”