Partnered with Peter Guber, he ran Sony Pictures for a time during the 1980s and 1990s.
Peters has been often criticized by many in and out of the movie industry for his perceived egomaniacal actions, eccentricity and tendency to go for style over substance, particularly in the action films he produces.
In his Q&A/comedy DVD, An Evening With Kevin Smith, writer/director Kevin Smith relates an anecdote about when he was hired to write a draft for the new Superman movie, which would have been called Superman Lives. According to Smith, Peters demanded that Superman was not to appear in his iconic costume, nor fly. He also instructed Kevin Smith to include a gay robot sidekick to Brainiac and a fight scene involving Brainiac and a pair of polar bears, and insisted that the final act of the film must consist of Superman fighting a giant spider which would be unveiled to Superman in a scene reminiscent of King Kong's reveal in his titular film. Later on in the DVD, Smith notes that the summer after he worked with Peters, he saw Wild Wild West, a movie produced by Peters, which similarly contained a giant mechanical spider.
Many fans blamed Peters for the almost two decade long absence of Superman on film, as well as the nearly $50 million loss that Warner Brothers took as a result of several failed attempts to reignite the franchise. In Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman, Jon Peters admits "the elements that I was focusing on were away from the heart, it was more leaning towards Star Wars in a sense, you know. I didn't realize the human part of it, I didn't have that." He subsequently served as Executive Producer for Superman Returns, the 2006 movie directed by Bryan Singer.
Jon Peters involvement in adapting the critically acclaimed and highly popular Sandman comics has also met with controversy. One draft, reviewed on the Internet at Ain't It Cool News, was met with scorn from fans. Sandman creator Neil Gaiman called the last screenplay that Warner Brothers would send him "...not only the worst Sandman script I've ever seen, but quite easily the worst script I've ever read." Gaiman also has said that his dissatisfaction with how his characters were being treated had dissuaded him from writing any more stories involving the Sandman characters, although he has since written Endless Nights. By 2001 the project had become stranded in development hell.
In a 2005 interview, Gaiman summarized the Peters' approach as follows: "But Sandman movies, they just got increasingly appalling. It was really strange. They started out hiring some really good people and you got Elliott and Rossio and Roger Avary came in and did a draft. They were all solid scripts. And then John Peters fired all of them and got in some people who take orders, and who wanted fistfights and all this stuff. It had no sensibility and it was just...they were horrible."
As with other films, Jon Peters insisted on the inclusion of a giant mechanical spider.
Peters has been married to (and divorced from) Marie Zampirella, Lesley Ann Warren, Christine Forsyth, and Mindy Peters. He has a son, Andi Peters, from Lesley Ann Warren, two daughters, Caleigh Peters and Skye Peters.
*Director Steven Spielberg specifically had it written into his contract that Jon Peters not be allowed onto the set.
