Nicholas Simon

Nicholas Simon
Born	(1969-03-21) 21 March 1969 (age 55) Rockford, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Film producer
Years active	1995 - present
Spouse	Shawn Simon ​ ​ (m. 2005; div. 2022)​
Children	1

Nicholas Andrew Simon, (born 21 March 1969) known professionally as Nicholas Simon, is a Hungarian-American film producer born in Rockford, Illinois, now currently residing in Bangkok, Thailand.[1] He has been producing feature films, TV series, and commercials in Southeast Asia for two and a half decades. For his work on City of Ghosts, A Prayer Before Dawn, Kong: Skull Island, Avengers: Infinity War, Simon has gained the title of “Hollywood’s man in Southeast Asia.”[2]

Simon is known for being the founder and managing partner of two production companies, Indochina Productions and Studio Muso.

Early life and education

An American-Hungarian dual national,[1] Simon was born in Rockford, Illinois, and lived on a farm before moving with his family to Beloit, Wisconsin, at the age of three.[2] He attended high school at Phillips Academy, graduating in 1987, before obtaining a B.A. at Columbia University in 1992, specializing in Asia.[3][4]

Simon was also an active cycler, participating in the 1985 USCF Junior National Championships, the Phillips Academy Varsity Team from 1986 to 1987, and the Columbia University Team from 1991 to 1993.[5]

In 2020, he acquired the certificate of completion for Stanford University's “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” program.

Career

Simon arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, via New York City in 1993 with the intent of becoming a journalist. However, he quickly realized he didn't enjoy writing and sought out other jobs.[2] Simon eventually met the producers of Trần Anh Hùng’s Cyclo and helped out on the film in an informal capacity. In the following year, he founded Sud-Est Productions, a production company based in Vietnam. During his time, he serviced production for and co-produced numerous films, the most notable being Matt Dillon’s City of Ghosts. He sold Sud-Est Productions in 2003, and it is now a fully Vietnamese company.[2][3]

While working as an independent industry consultant, Simon moved to Bangkok with his wife and daughter in 2009.[1] In 2010, he founded Indochina Productions, which provides production services for projects in Southeast Asia. The company initially provided support for Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but now provides production services in 14 territories throughout Asia.[2][6] It has since been dubbed by the NYFA as “the only company in Southeast Asia to produce and service big-budget Hollywood studio films and Fortune 500 advertising commercial needs.”[7]

Simon has been the line producer for Indochina Productions on several major feature films, such as Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods and Sam Hargrave’s Extraction, and the executive producer for Indochina Productions on Hong Khaou’s Monsoon and Daniel Roby’s Target Number One.[8] He is also known for his work as a line producer on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame as well as on Kong: Skull Island.[9][10][11] Upcoming projects include adapting Jon Swain’s River of Time with Lawrence Osborne as the screenplay writer for a feature film,[12] as well as Lawrence Osborne’s own Hunters in the Dark for the big screen.[13][14][15]

Simon has been on the board of Luang Prabang Film Festival since 2012 and a member of the Producers Guild of America and the Production Guild UK since 2015.[1][16][17]

In 2020, Simon also founded another production company, Studio Muso.[18]

He has been a jurist and panelist at several industry events since 2003.[19][20] He has also written op-eds for the Thai Enquirer.[21][22]

Filmography

Year	Film	Director	Role
1995	Cyclo	Trần Anh Hùng	Post-Production Producer/Special Thanks
1997	Distant Skies	Thierry Chabert	Line Producer, Vietnam
2000	The Vertical Ray of the Sun	Trần Anh Hùng	Line Producer
2003	City of Ghosts	Matt Dillon	Associate Producer
2003	Step into Liquid	Dana Brown	Line Producer, Vietnam
2003	What Alice Found	A. Dean Bell	Executive Producer (uncredited)[23]
2004	The Beautiful Country	Hans Petter Moland	Line Producer, Vietnam
2005	Rx	Ariel Vromen	Producer
2010	Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston	Whitney Sudler-Smith	Producer
2010	The Best and the Brightest	Josh Shelov	Producer
2011	Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon	Michael Bay	Line Producer, Cambodia
2012	Act of Valor	Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh	Line Producer, Cambodia
2015	Pan	Joe Wright	Line Producer, Vietnam VFX Unit
2015	Kenzhe	Ermek Tursunov	Line Producer, Thailand
2015	Avengers: Age of Ultron	Joss Whedon/Scott Mahaffie (Second unit)	Line Producer, Bangladesh
2017	Lima	Neill Blomkamp	Line Producer, Thailand
2017	Kong: Skull Island	Jordan Vogt-Roberts	Line Producer, Vietnam
2017	A Prayer Before Dawn	Jean-Stephane Sauvaire	Producer
2017/ON HOLD[24]	Hue 1968	Michael Mann[25]	Co-Producer, Thailand and Vietnam
2018	Avengers: Infinity War	Russo Brothers	Line Producer and Aerial Unit, The Philippines
2018	Les Confins Du Monde	Guillaume Nicloux	Co-Producer and Line Producer
2019	Buoyancy	Rodd Rathjen	Production Consultant, Cambodia
2019	Avengers: Endgame	Russo Brothers	Line Producer and Aerial Unit, the Philippines
2019	Monsoon	Hong Khaou	Executive for Indochina Productions, Vietnam
2020	Extraction	Sam Hargrave	Line Producer for Indochina Productions, Thailand and Bangladesh
2020	Da 5 Bloods	Spike Lee	Line Producer for Indochina Productions, Vietnam
2020	Target Number One	Daniel Roby	Executive for Indochina Productions, Thailand
2020	Penguin Bloom	Glendyn Ivin	Executive for Indochina Productions
2021	Finding 'Ohana	Jude Weng	Line Producer for Indochina Productions, Thailand
2021	Hunters in the Dark	Simon Evan	Co-Producer
2021	River of Time	TBA	TBA
2023 (upcoming)	The Symphatizer	Park Chan-Wook	Co-Producer
2023	The Creator	Gareth Edwards	Co-Producer
2023	Deane's Dynasty	Patrick Carr	Producer, Co-Creator
2023	Meg 2	Ben Wheatley	Line Producer
2023	Mandalorian	Jon Favreau	Line Producer, Vietnam - Plate Unit

References

1. "Nicholas Simon". Thailand Tatler. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
2. Brzeski, Patrick (18 May 2015). "Cannes: IndoChina Head Talks 'A Prayer Before Dawn' and Shooting in Southeast Asia". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
3. Fox, Peter (Spring 2021). "A Time Like No Other: Nicholas Simon's Indochina Productions Quietly Yet Boldly Leads The Industry Through Its Most Challenging Period". Venü Magazine. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
4. "Nicholas Simon". LinkedIn. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
5. Leddin, Adam (2012). "VIGO CYCLES CX 002". The Spoken. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
6. "Home". Indochina Productions. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
7. "NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY (NYFA) WELCOMES CEO OF INDOCHINA PRODUCTIONS AND PRODUCER NICHOLAS SIMON FOR LIZ HINLEIN'S 'THE 20/20 SERIES'". NYFA. 6 July 2020. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
8. "Our Work". Indochina Productions. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
9. Vu Van Viet (4 April 2016). "Kong: Skull Island: the art of filming to a Vietnamese backdrop". VN Express. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
10. "PH's Banaue Rice Terraces featured in 'Avengers: Infinity War'". Coconuts Manila. 27 April 2018. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
11. Uy, Jerald (26 April 2018). "Spoiler warning: 'Avengers: Infinity War' features a PH tourist spot". CNN Philippines. Archived from the original on 29 April 2018. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
12. Brzeski, Patrick (24 June 2020). "Novelist Lawrence Osborne to Script Film Adaptation of Cult War Memoir 'River of Time'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
13. Flynn, Gerald (8 November 2019). "Film adaptation of Hunters in the Dark to start shooting in Cambodia next year". Capital Cambodia. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
14. Ritman, Alex (9 November 2019). "AFM: Alex Pettyfer to Lead 'Hunters in the Dark' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
15. Brzeski, Patrick (21 February 2020). "Berlin: Lawrence Osborne Thriller 'Hunters in the Dark' Fills Out Cast (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
16. "About". Luang Prabang Film Festival. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
17. "The Team". Indochina Productions. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
18. "Our Team". Studio Muso. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
19. "SIP Judges". Greater Philadelphia Film Office. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
20. "BKK DOC International Jury". BKK DOC. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
21. Simon, Nicholas (3 July 2020). "Opinion: Destroying Scala is destroying past hopes and future dreams". Thai Enquirer. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
22. Simon, Nicholas (9 December 2020). "Thailand must take steps to attract foreign film productions or lose them to regional rivals". Thai Enquirer. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
23. "Nicholas Simon". IMDb. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
24. "Author Mark Bowden Revisits the True Story of 'Black Hawk Down'". Military.com. 13 May 2019. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
25. Fleming, Mike (6 July 2017). "FX To Turn Mark Bowden Tet Offensive Chronicle 'Hue 1968' Into Limited Series; Michael Mann & Michael De Luca Producing". Deadline. Retrieved 30 March 2021.

External links

• IMDb Profile