Nicholas Meyer | |
|---|---|
 Meyer in 2025 | |
| Born | (1945-12-24)December 24, 1945 (age 79) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Iowa |
| Occupations | |
| Children | 2, includingDylan Meyer |
| Relatives | Kristen Stewart (daughter-in-law) |
| Website | nicholas-meyer |
Nicholas Meyer (born December 24, 1945) is an American screenwriter, director and author known for his best-selling novelThe Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and for directing the filmsTime After Time, two of theStar Trek feature films, the 1983 television filmThe Day After, and the 1999HBO original filmVendetta.
Meyer was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the filmThe Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), where he adapted his own novel into a screenplay. He has also been nominated for aSatellite Award, threeEmmy Awards, and has won fourSaturn Awards. He appeared as himself during the 2017On Cinema spinoff seriesThe Trial, during which he testified aboutStar Trek andSan Francisco.
Meyer was born in New York City, to aJewish family. He is the son of Bernard Constant Meyer (1910–1988), a Manhattan psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and his first wife, concert pianist Elly (died 1960; née Kassman). He has three sisters.[1] Meyer graduated from theUniversity of Iowa with a degree in theater and filmmaking, and also wrote film reviews for the campus newspaper.
Meyer first gained public attention for his best-selling 1974Sherlock Holmes novelThe Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a story of Holmes confronting hiscocaine addiction with the help ofSigmund Freud.
Meyer followed this with four additional Holmes novels:The West End Horror (1976),The Canary Trainer (1993),The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols (2019), andThe Return of the Pharaoh (2021).[2][3]
Meyer has said thatThe Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols was inspired bySteven Zipperstein'sPogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History.[4]
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was later adapted as a1976 film of the same name, for which Meyer wrote the screenplay. The film was directed byHerbert Ross and starredNicol Williamson,Robert Duvall,Alan Arkin andLaurence Olivier. For his work adapting the novel, Meyer was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay at the49th Academy Awards.
Intrigued by the first part of college friendKarl Alexander's then-incomplete novelTime After Time, Meyer optioned the book and adapted it into a screenplay. He consented to sell the script only if he were attached as director. The deal was optioned byWarner Bros., and the film became Meyer's directorial debut. Meyer freely allowed Alexander to borrow from the screenplay. The latter published his novel at about the same time the movie was released.
Time After Time (1979) starredMalcolm McDowell,Mary Steenburgen andDavid Warner. It was a critical and commercial success.[5]
Meyer next "wanted to make a film of theRobertson Davies novel,Fifth Business. And I had written the screenplay. And nobody was interested in doing this." At the behest of then Paramount executive Karen Moore, he was hired to directStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.[6]
Meyer later directed the 1983 television filmThe Day After, starringJason Robards,JoBeth Williams,John Cullum,Bibi Besch,John Lithgow andSteve Guttenberg, which depicted the ramifications of a nuclear attack on the United States. Meyer had originally decided not to do any television work, but changed his mind upon reading the script by Edward Hume. For his work onThe Day After, Meyer was nominated for anEmmy Award for Best Director. Afterward, he also directed "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", a 1985 episode of the television seriesShelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre.
He resumed directing theatrical films with the 1985 comedyVolunteers, starringTom Hanks andJohn Candy. He then returned toStar Trek, co-writing the screenplay forStar Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) with producerHarve Bennett.
In 1986 Meyer helpedJames Dearden write the screenplay forFatal Attraction, based on a short movie Dearden made in 1980 calledDiversion.[7] In Meyer's bookThe View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood, he explains that in late 1986 producerStanley R. Jaffe asked him to look at the script developed by Dearden, and he wrote a four-page memo making suggestions for the script including a new ending for the movie. A few weeks later he met with directorAdrian Lyne and gave him some additional suggestions.
Meyer's next directing job was the 1988Merchant Ivory produced dramaThe Deceivers, withPierce Brosnan as British officer William Savage. Meyer later wrote and directed the 1991 spy comedyCompany Business, starringGene Hackman andMikhail Baryshnikov as aging American and Russian secret agents. In 1991, Meyer once again returned to the world ofStar Trek, co-writing and directingStar Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which became aswan song for the original cast.[8] In 1995, he completed a two-part teleplay based on Homer's Odyssey which he temporarily published on his website in 2003. He would be credited as one of the producers of the1997 mini-series. Meyer performed uncredited rewrites on an early draft of the screenplay of the 1997James Bond filmTomorrow Never Dies.[9]
Meyer adapted thePhilip Roth novelThe Human Stain into the 2003 film of the same name. In 2006, he teamed withMartin Scorsese to write the screenplay for Scorsese's adaptation ofEdmund Morris'sPulitzer Prize winning biography ofTheodore Roosevelt,The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. The story traces Roosevelt's early life.
The two part, four hour,History Channel event miniseries,Houdini, starringAdrien Brody, aired over Labor Day 2014. Meyer's script was nominated for a WGA award and the series was nominated for seven Emmys.
In 2016, he co-created the Italian-British seriesMedici: Masters of Florence withFrank Spotnitz for Italian TV channelRai 1, and wrote the first two episodes of season one.
Meyer, along with writer/producerHarve Bennett, is one of two people credited with revitalizing and perhaps saving theStar Trek franchise after the problems of the first film,Star Trek: The Motion Picture, almost causedParamount Pictures to end the series. Paramount had been unhappy with the creative direction of the first film, as well as the cost overruns and production problems. However, the film was also a great financial success, and they wanted a sequel. Bennett, a reliable television producer, was hired to help.
Introduced to Bennett by Paramount executive Karen Moore, Meyer was hired as a potential director forStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan despite never having seen the first film.[10]: 96 Due to problems with the early drafts of the script, which most readers disliked, Meyer quickly became involved in re-writing the film's screenplay. After meeting with Bennett and other cast members and crew members regarding the script, Meyer impressedStar Trek actors and producers by delivering a superior script draft in only twelve days. The draft had to be completed so quickly that Meyer agreed to forgo negotiating a contract or credit for his writing to begin work on the script immediately. As a result, he is uncredited as a writer on the final film.
Meyer made stylistic alterations in his direction, such as adding more of a naval appearance to the production. Meyer and Bennett created an engaging film while also reducing costs and avoiding the production fiascoes of the firstStar Trek film.[citation needed]The Wrath of Khan became a financial success, grossing $78 million in the domestic market, and is considered by many to be the bestStar Trek film to date.[11]
Although he "refuse[d] to specialize" and so vowed to not work on anotherStar Trek project,[12] Meyer co-wrote the screenplay for the fourthStar Trek film,Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home with Bennett. For that film, Bennett wrote the first and thirdacts, which occur in the 23rd century, and Meyer wrote the second act, which occurs in 1986 San Francisco. Meyer has said that one of the most enjoyable aspects of working on this film was getting the chance to re-use elements which he had been forced to discard from his earlier film,Time After Time.Star Trek IV proved to be successful financially,[13] notable for succeeding with general moviegoers as well as science fiction andStar Trek devotees.
Meyer worked for theStar Trek franchise again for the sixth film in the series,Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). He developed the story withLeonard Nimoy and co-wrote the screenplay with long-time friend and assistant Denny Flinn. He directed the picture, which was the final film to feature the entire classicStar Trek cast. Like its predecessors, this film was successful financially, grossing $74 million in the domestic market.[citation needed] Many of Meyer's personal papers from his involvement with theStar Trek franchise are housed at the University of Iowa Libraries.[14]
In February 2016 it was announced that Meyer would be returning toStar Trek by joining the writing team for CBS's new TV seriesStar Trek: Discovery.[15] In November 2018, Meyer announced in an online interview that he was not invited back forDiscovery's second season. He also disclosed that he could not identify his precise contributions, as television is such a collaborative medium.[16][17]
In 2020, Meyer wrote a detailed proposal with his producing partnerSteven-Charles Jaffe for a newStar Trek project, including a treatment and illustrations. Meyer said the project was not connected to any of the franchise's previous films and was set in a gap in theStar Trek timeline where an original story could be told with new characters. He described the project as a feature film, but said it could also be a television series or a combination of television and film. Meyer and Jaffe presented this proposal toStar Trek television producerAlex Kurtzman, Abrams, and Watts, but had not heard anything back from Paramount by March 2021.[18] At that time, Paramount setStar Trek: Discovery writerKalinda Vazquez to write the script for a newStar Trek film, based on her own original idea, with Abrams's Bad Robot producing.
Meyer was married to Lauren Taylor Meyer in the late 1980s and they had two daughters, Rachel (b. 1986) and Madeleine (b. 1990). Meyer's daughter Rachel, now known as screenwriterDylan Meyer, married actress and filmmakerKristen Stewart on April 21, 2025.[19][20][21][22]
In 2023, Meyer won the Future of Life Award, for reducing the risk of nuclear war through the power of storytelling.[23]
| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | Invasion of the Bee Girls | No | Yes |
| 1976 | The Seven-Per-Cent Solution | No | Yes |
| 1979 | Time After Time | Yes | Yes |
| 1982 | Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan | Yes | Uncredited |
| 1985 | Volunteers | Yes | No |
| 1986 | Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home | No | Yes |
| 1987 | Fatal Attraction[7] | No | Uncredited |
| 1988 | The Deceivers | Yes | No |
| 1991 | Company Business | Yes | Yes |
| Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country | Yes | Yes | |
| 1993 | Sommersby | No | Yes |
| 1995 | Voices | No | Yes |
| 1997 | Tomorrow Never Dies[9] | No | Uncredited |
| 1998 | The Prince of Egypt | No | Additional |
| 2003 | The Human Stain | No | Yes |
| 2008 | Elegy | No | Yes |
| 2009 | The Hessen Affair | No | Yes |
Producer
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Faerie Tale Theatre | Yes | Yes | Episode "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" |
| 2016 | Medici: Masters of Florence | No | Yes | 1 episode Also co-creator |
| 2017 | Star Trek: Discovery | No | Yes | 1 episode; Also consulting producer |
| On Cinema at the Cinema | No | No | As himself |
Miniseries
| Year | Title | Writer | Executive Producer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | The Odyssey | No | Yes |
| 2014 | Houdini | Yes | No |
TV movies
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Executive Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders | No | Yes | No |
| 1975 | The Night That Panicked America | No | Yes | No |
| 1983 | The Day After | Yes | No | No |
| 1997 | The Informant | No | Yes | Yes |
| 1999 | Vendetta | Yes | No | No |
| 2002 | Fall from the Sky | No | Yes | No |
| 2006 | Orpheus | No | Yes | Yes |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | The Love Story Story | Non-fiction |
| 1974 | The Seven-Per-Cent Solution | Sherlock Holmes pastiche Publishers Weekly'sbestselling novels of 1974 |
| Target Practice | ||
| 1976 | The West End Horror | Sherlock Holmes pastiche |
| 1978 | Black Orchid | Co-Written withBarry J. Kaplan |
| 1981 | Confessions of a Homing Pigeon | |
| 1993 | The Canary Trainer | Sherlock Holmes pastiche |
| 2009 | The View From the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood | Non-fiction |
| 2019 | The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols | Sherlock Holmes pastiche[27] |
| 2021 | The Return of the Pharaoh | Sherlock Holmes pastiche[28] |
| 2024 | Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell | Sherlock Holmes pastiche[29] |
| Award | Year | Title | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | 1976 | The Seven-Per-Cent Solution | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nominated |
| Emmy Awards | 1975 | The Night That Panicked America | Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special | Nominated |
| 1983 | The Day After | Outstanding Directing in a Limited Series or a Special | Nominated | |
| Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special | Nominated | |||
| 1997 | The Odyssey | Outstanding Miniseries | Nominated | |
| Satellite Awards | 2008 | Elegy | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nominated |
| Saturn Awards | 1979 | Time After Time | Best Science Fiction Film | Nominated |
| Best Director | Nominated | |||
| Best Writing | Won | |||
| 1982 | Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan | Best Director | Won | |
| Best Science Fiction Film | Nominated | |||
| 1984 | The George Pal Memorial Award | Won | ||
| 1986 | Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home | Best Writing | Nominated | |
| 1991 | Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country | Best Science Fiction Film | Won | |
| Best Writing | Nominated | |||
| Spur Awards | 1993 | Sommersby | Best Drama Script | Won |
