In emerging as one of the most successful producers in town, he turned the system upside down in a simple way: the director, generally considered the king of the world on a movie set, is a commoner in Mr. Simonds said most of his movies have a target audience of boys from 12 to 18. Though lately he is extending his reach to older males, too, Mr. Simonds, 34, has developed and produced a dozen films in the last eight years, including hits like ''Problem Child,'' ''Happy Gilmore,'' ''Billy Madison'' and ''The Wedding Singer.'' Though critics have hardly raved, the films have struck a chord with (mostly) young male audiences. But he's earning piles of money.Īrmed with his training as a philosophy major (his thesis was on the nature of evil) and a shrewd sense of the bottom line, Mr. He admitted this will probably never earn him an Academy Award or a seat at the table of top Hollywood producers like Scott Rudin (''The Truman Show,'' ''In and Out'') or Brian Grazer (''Liar, Liar,'' ''Apollo 13''). Simonds has done, in a curiously unflamboyant way, is carve a niche and dominate the lucrative market of teen-age boys' films. ''I'm not particularly great at producing, but it's just nobody else was doing what I do,'' he said. He majored in philosophy at Yale, wears a suit and tie to work every day, keeps his hair short and speaks like a shrewd, cheerful businessman. Simonds, whose newest boy film, ''The Waterboy,'' with Adam Sandler and Kathy Bates is to be released by Disney in November, is an improbable movie producer.
Males from 12 to 22 remain the single most reliable segment of the moviegoing public - one third of the audience - even though their influence at the box office has dipped a bit in favor of young girls and adults. ''What we're seeing right now is a reafffirmation that the teen male really does represent a tremendous amount of cash at the box office,'' he said. And Robert Simonds, Hollywood's foremost producer of boy films, couldn't be more delighted. With ''Lethal Weapon 4'' and ''The Mask of Zorro'' also playing powerfully among young men, it's turning into a summer of boy's films that crossed over into larger audiences of families (''Dr. Similarly, Joe Roth, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, predicted that the company's doomsday film ''Armageddon,'' which opened somewhat disappointingly on the Fourth of July weekend, could emerge with the biggest box office gross of the summer, $185 million to $200 million. Rothman said, speaking of the studio's two summer hits, ''Doctor Dolittle'' and ''There's Something About Mary,'' which owe a hefty share of their box office success to teen-age boys.
Tom Rothman, president of 20th Century Fox film production, is a very happy studio executive.