Peter Hyams - Biography

Peter Hyams (born July 26, 1943) is an American screenwriter, director and cinematographer, probably best known for directing the 1984 science fiction adventure 2010 (the sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey), Capricorn One, the comic book adaptation Timecop and the Arnold Schwarzenegger horror/action film End of Days.

Biography

Family

Hyams was born in New York City, New York, the son of Ruth Hurok and Barry Hyams, who was a theatrical producer and publicist on Broadway. His maternal grandfather was Sol Hurok, the Russian Jewish impresario. His stepfather was blacklisted Arthur Lief. His sister is casting director Nessa Hyams.

Career

Studied art and music at Hunter College and Syracuse University, before working as producer/anchorman for WHDH-TV and later WBBM-TV. He has described himself as "one of the very few writer/directors of major films who also photographs his own pictures". During his time with CBS (where he worked from 1964 to 1970), he began to shoot documentary films. Hyams moved to Los Angeles in 1970 and sold his first screenplay, T.R. Baskin, to Paramount Pictures in 1971.

Hyams worked in television through the early to mid-1970s. His first major film was Capricorn One (1978), a critically acclaimed conspiracy thriller about a faked mission to Mars. This was followed by the less successful Hanover Street (1979) which starred Harrison Ford, and the science fiction cult classic Outland (1981), which starred Sean Connery in a 'High Noon' scenario set on Io, one of Jupiter's moons. In 1983, he produced, directed, and wrote the screenplay for 2010 (1984), collaborating closely with author Arthur C. Clarke (2010).

Hyams also co-authored with Clarke The Odyssey File: The Making of 2010, published 1985, a collection of their email correspondence which illustrates their fascination with the then pioneering medium and its use for them to communicate on an almost daily basis at the time of planning and production of the film.

Other movies Hyams has directed/photographed include: The Star Chamber (1983), Running Scared (1986), The Presidio (1988), Narrow Margin (1990), Stay Tuned (1992), Timecop (1994), The Relic (1997), and End of Days (1999). In addition, Hyams also directed various episodes of Steven Spielberg's television show, Amazing Stories, executive produced the 1980s cult kids movie, The Monster Squad (1986), and co-wrote the screenplay for the Charles Bronson thriller, Telefon (1977). Since the mid-1980s, Hyams has directed several Hollywood-based movies with varying degrees of commercial and critical success.

His two most recent films are The Musketeer (2001) and A Sound of Thunder (2005). The Musketeer (2001) was a minor box office success in the United States. However, A Sound of Thunder (2005), which faced many troubles during its production (including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production), performed particularly badly at the box office worldwide.

In 2007, it was reported that he would direct the remake of his own Capricorn One, instead he directed the remake of the 1956 film noir Beyond a Reasonable Doubt starring Michael Douglas, which was released in 2009. He also elaborated the cinematography of his son John's effort, Universal Soldier: Regeneration, the third official Universal Soldier sequel starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren.

Personal life

On December 19, 1964 he married George-Ann Spota, with whom he has three children.

Trademark

Hyams is well known for acting as his own cinematographer on the movies he directs.

As a reference to his wife's family, there's a minor character named Spota in many of his films, the exceptions being, "A Sound of Thunder", "End of Days" (although there was a bar called "Spotas"), "Stay Tuned", "Narrow Margin", "Running Scared", "2010", "Hanover Street" and "Peeper".

Filmography

Additionally he directed in 1972 the TV movies Goodnight, My Love and Rolling Man.

Notes

• also screenwriter
• also director of photography

External links

• Interview with Peter Hyams by Luke Ford (2002, Santa Monica, California)