Gotham City's New Boss

At this time 26 years ago, you could have found Batman Forever director Joel Schumacher on a long, narrow, sybaritic spit of East Coast sand called Fire Island, shooting up speed when the sun went down, dancing until dawn, and spiraling toward oblivion. It wasn't pretty. After years of drug abuse, he had lost five teeth, dropped to a reedy 130 pounds, and fallen $50,000 in debt. ''I wore the same Speedo all summer,'' he recalls, both amused and appalled at his behavior. ''Everybody thought it was really sexy, but I was just too stoned to put on clothes.... If I had continued shooting up, I'm sure I would have died.''

That was then. This summer, Schumacher, now 55, won't have time for tanning and drugging. He'll be busy brushing all the ticker tape Tinseltown has to offer out of his ponytail. In its first two and a half weeks, his Batman Forever raked in $141.8 million, ensuring that it will soon surpass the $162.8 million earned by Batman Returns. He's fulfilled the mission set forth by Warner chiefs Terry Semel and Bob Daly in 1994, when they handed Schumacher the reins of what was described as the company's ''largest asset''; as mandated, Schumacher saved the franchise, and in the process vaulted himself onto Hollywood's directorial A-list.

It wasn't until he took a three-day break at a Hayman Island resort and caught a mention of Batman Forever on TV that it sank in. ''It was on a CNN international money story,'' says Schumacher, quite amazed. ''I said, 'This is big!''' Big indeed — after its second weekend, when Forever withstood the opening of Pocahontas to finish second by a bat eyelash, the film had become the biggest hit of his 10-movie career. This, says Schumacher, feels ''very good. Not that I have anything against Pocahontas. I've never dated her myself, but she seems like a very nice girl.''

Schumacher's a rangy, laid-back character with shoulder-length hair, great long lines mapping his face, and a knack for collecting friends — from columnist Liz Smith, who often stays with him when she's in Los Angeles, to Woody Allen, who gave Schumacher one of his first breaks by hiring him to design costumes for Sleeper, to John Grisham, who is responsible for what may be the director's next blockbuster, an adaptation of his novel A Time to Kill. Hollywood had coveted the book for years, but Grisham refused to sell the rights — until he met Schumacher on last year's The Client. ''I realized, 'Hey! Here's a Hollywood type that I can trust,''' says the author. Schumacher's films — which include The Incredible Shrinking Woman (his 1981 debut), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), and Flatliners (1990) — have sometimes been criticized as long on looks and short on artistic merit. But no one in Hollywood argues with his strong commercial instincts and unerring way with actors; he practically invented the St. Elmo's Brat Pack, as well as the new Bat pack. ''I've got a long way to go as a director,'' says Schumacher, ''but I'll match my casting to anybody's.'' In fact, it was Schumacher who decided to bring in Chris O'Donnell's Robin as a punk hunk with a thirst for revenge. ''Dick Grayson's story is much more interesting than I'd ever seen it portrayed,'' he says. ''Because of the TV series, [Robin] was seen as this kind of asexual, cartoony, wholesome airhead. You know, 'Holy bat smoke!'''