Simon got into filmmaking in 1976 when he was having a social game of golf with producer Harry Saltzman who needed money for a film he wanted to make called The Micronauts.
[1] Simon totally financed The Chicken Chronicles which was distributed by AVCO Embassy and gave an early lead role to Steve Guttenberg.
[7] In June 1978 the Los Angeles Times called Simon "the hottest, most sought after source of filmmaking money in the business."
[1] Somebody Killed Her Husband was a box office disappointment but Simon made a profit of $2 million from pre-selling it.
[10][11][12] In September 1979 20th Century Fox agreed to pick up all Melvin Simon's movies made in 1979 and 1980 in a deal worth an estimated $10 million.
Excluded from the deal were films made before 1979 - The Runner Stumbles, Cloud Dancer and The Stunt Man.
However the majority of the films flopped, notably Zorro the Gay Blade and the company started to wind back its operations.
[17] Filmink magazine later wrote "Simon’s legacy as a movie financier is actually very good – he just lacked a library of past titles to provide him with a diversified cash flow to ride out the bad times (every independent suffers from this problem).