20-Year Prospect

20-Year Prospect

As long as Hollywood continues to churn out Die Hard sequels, you'll have a job. You're the money, after all.

Movies today tend to cost a fortune to make. World War Z had a budget of $190 million; ditto Star Trek: Into Darkness and Pacific Rim. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is the most expensive flick ever filmed, at $341.8 million...although no amount of cash could've saved that movie from being a steaming pile of poop.

Keep in mind, though, that the times they are a-changin'. Where once it took all of your considerable skill to get a movie financed, today wannabe filmmakers can go to (gasp!) the Internet for cash. Lovers of the TV show Veronica Mars contributed five million to a Kickstarter campaign so their favorite mystery-solving heroine could get a shot at the big screen.

Of course, Veronica Mars only made a little over three million at the box office. Your big-budget projects tend to do way better, although not always. Remember the cautionary tale of The Lone Ranger: Johnny Depp will not always bring in all the moviegoers.

At any rate, so long as studios are willing to be sweet-talked by you into throwing the annual GDP of Sao Tome and Principe at a single movie, you'll have a career.