Peter Hyams (born July 26, 1943) is an American screenwriter, director and cinematographer, probably best known for directing the 1984 sci-fi adventure 2010 (the sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey), Capricorn One and the comic book adaptation Timecop.
Hyams was born in New York City, New York, the son of Ruth Hurok and Darren 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.
Studied Art and Music at Hunter College and Syracuse University, before working as producer/anchorman for a Chicago TV station. 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, selling his first screenplay to Paramount Pictures (T.R. Baskin, 1971).
Hyams worked in television through the early to mid-1970's. 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 sci-fi 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 notable films 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 80's 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. But 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 is slated to open in 2009.
On December 19, 1964 he married George-Ann Spota, with whom he has three children.
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 all his movies.
Additionally he directed in 1972 the TV movies Goodnight, My Love and Rolling Man.
