MEYER NICHOLAS

Meyer at the Air Force Film Festival in Los Angeles at the Academy
of Television Arts & Sciences (November 14, 2008)
Born December 24, 1945 (age 75) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation Screenwriter, film producer, film director, novelist
Websitenicholas-meyer.com
Nicholas Meyer (born December 24, 1945) is an American writer
and director, known for his best-selling novel The Seven-Per-Cent
Solution, and for directing the films Time After Time, two of the Star
Trek feature films, the 1983 television film The Day After, and the
1999 HBO original film Vendetta.
Meyer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted
Screenplay for the film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), where
he adapted his own novel into a screenplay. He has also been
nominated for a Satellite Award, three Emmy Awards, and has won four Saturn Awards. He appeared
as himself during the 2017 On Cinema spinoff series The Trial, during which he testified about Star
Trek and San Francisco.
Early life
Meyer was born in New York City, New York, to a Jewish family. He is the son of Elly (Kassman), a
concert pianist, and Bernard Constant Meyer, a Manhattan psychoanalyst. [1][2] Meyer graduated from the
University of Iowa with a degree in theater and filmmaking, and also wrote film reviews for the campus
newspaper.
Career
Author
Meyer first gained public attention for his best-selling 1974 Sherlock Holmes novel The Seven-Per-
Cent Solution, a story of Holmes confronting his cocaine addiction with the help of Sigmund Freud.
Meyer followed this with three additional Holmes novels: The West End Horror (1976), The Canary
Trainer (1993) and The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols (2019). Meyer has said that The
Adventures of the Peculiar Protocols was inspired by Steven Zipperstein's Pogrom: Kishinev and the
Tilt of History.
Writer/Director
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was later adapted as a 1976 film of the same name, for which Meyer
wrote the screenplay. The film was directed by Herbert Ross and starred Nicol Williamson, Robert
Duvall, Alan Arkin and Laurence Olivier. For his work adapting the novel, Meyer was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 49th Academy Awards.
Intrigued by the first part of college friend Karl Alexander's then-incomplete novel Time 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 by Warner 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) starred Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen and David Warner. It was a
critical and commercial success.
At the behest of then Paramount executive Karen Moore, Meyer was hired to direct Star Trek II: The
Wrath of Khan.
Meyer later directed the 1983 television film The Day After, starring Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams,
John Cullum, Bibi Besch, John Lithgow and Steve 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 on The Day After, Meyer was
nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Director. Afterward, he also directed "The Pied Piper of
Hamelin", a 1985 episode of the television series Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre.
He resumed directing theatrical films with the 1985 comedy Volunteers, starring Tom Hanks and John
Candy. After directing Volunteers, Meyer returned to working on Star Trek, co-writing the screenplay
for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) with producer Harve Bennett.
In 1986 Meyer helped James Dearden write the screenplay for Fatal Attraction, which was based on a
short movie Dearden made in 1980 called Diversion. In Meyer's book The View from the Bridge:
Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood, he explains that in late 1986 producer Stanley 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 director
Adrian Lyne and gave him some additional suggestions.
Meyer's next directing job was the 1988 Merchant Ivory produced drama The Deceivers, with Pierce
Brosnan as British officer William Savage. Meyer later wrote and directed the 1991 spy comedy
Company Business, starring Gene Hackman and Mikhail Baryshnikov as aging American and Russian
secret agents. In 1991, Meyer once again returned to the world of Star Trek, co-writing and directing
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which became a swan song for the original cast. Meyer
performed uncredited rewrites on an early draft of the screenplay of the 1997 James Bond film
Tomorrow Never Dies.
Meyer adapted the Philip Roth novel The Human Stain into the 2003 film of the same name. In 2006, he
teamed with Martin Scorsese to write the screenplay for Scorsese's adaptation of Edmund Morris's
Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Theodore Roosevelt, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. The story
traces Roosevelt's early life.
The two part, four hour, History Channel event miniseries, Houdini, starring Adrien 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 series Medici: Masters of Florence with Frank Spotnitz for
Italian TV channel Rai 1, and wrote the first two episodes of season one.
Star Trek
Meyer, along with writer/producer Harve Bennett, is one of two people credited with revitalizing and
perhaps saving the Star Trek franchise after the problems of the first film, Star Trek: The Motion
Picture, almost caused Paramount 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 for
Star 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 members of the cast and crew regarding the
script, Meyer impressed Star Trek actors and producers by delivering a superior draft of the script in
only twelve days. The draft had to be completed so quickly, in fact, that Meyer agreed to forgo the
negotiation of a contract or credit for his writing in order to begin work on the script immediately. As a
result, he is uncredited as a writer on the final film.
In his direction, Meyer made stylistic alterations, such as adding more of a naval appearance to the
production. Meyer and Bennett together created a film that was engaging while also reducing costs and
avoiding the production fiascoes of the first Star Trek film. The Wrath of Khan became a financial
success, grossing $78 million in the domestic market, and is considered by many to be the best Star
Trek film to date.
Although he "refuse[d] to specialize" and so vowed to not work on another Star Trek project, Meyer co-
wrote the screenplay for the fourth Star Trek film, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home with Bennett. For
that film, Bennett wrote the first and third acts, 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, notable for
succeeding with general moviegoers as well as science fiction and Star Trek devotees.
Meyer worked for the Star Trek franchise again for the sixth film in the series, Star Trek VI: The
Undiscovered Country (1991). He developed the story with Leonard 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 classic Star Trek cast. Like its predecessors, this film was successful
financially, grossing $74 million in the domestic market. Many of Meyer's personal papers from his
involvement with the Star Trek franchise are housed at the University of Iowa Libraries.
In February 2016 it was announced that Meyer would be returning to Star Trek by joining the writing
team for CBS's new TV series Star Trek: Discovery. In November 2018, Meyer announced in an online
interview that he was not invited back for Discovery's second season. He also disclosed that he could
not identify his precise contributions, as television is such a collaborative medium.
FILMOGRAPHY
Year Title Job Notes
Invasion of the Bee
1973 Writer
Girls
Judge Dee and the
1974 Writer (screenplay) TV film
Monastery Murders
TV film
Nominated — Primetime Emmy
The Night That
1975 Writer (screenplay) Award for Outstanding Writing for a
Panicked America
Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic
Special
Nominated — Academy Award for
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Seven-Per-
1976 Writer (novel/screenplay) Nominated — WGA Award for Best
Cent Solution
Drama Adapted from Another
Medium
Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival
Antenne II Award
Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival
Grand Prize
Saturn Award for Best Writing
Nominated — Edgar Allan Poe
Award for Best Motion Picture
1979 Time After Time Director/Writer (screenplay)
Screenplay
Nominated — Hugo Award for Best
Dramatic Presentation
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best
Direction
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best
Science Fiction Film
Saturn Award for Best Direction
Nominated — Hugo Award for Best
Star Trek II: The Director/Writer (screenplay –
1982 Dramatic Presentation
Wrath of Khan uncredited)
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best
Science Fiction Film
TV film
Golden Screen Award
Nominated — Primetime Emmy
Award for Outstanding Directing in a
1983 The Day After Director
Limited Series or a Special
Nominated — Primetime Emmy
Award for Outstanding
Drama/Comedy Special
Faerie Tale TV series, episode "The Pied Piper
Director/Writer (screenplay)
1985 Theatre of Hamelin"
Volunteers Director
Star Trek IV: The Nominated — Saturn Award for Best
1986 Writer (screenplay)
Voyage Home Writing
1987 Fatal Attraction[7] Writer (uncredited)
Year Title Job Notes
1988 The Deceivers Director
Company Business Director/Writer
Saturn Award for Best Science
Fiction Film
Star Trek VI: The
1991 Nominated — Hugo Award for Best
Undiscovered Director/Writer (screenplay)
Dramatic Presentation
Country
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best
Writing
Spur Award for Best Motion Picture
1993 Sommersby Writer
Script
1995 Voices Writer
TV film
Writer (screenplay)/Executive
The Informant Won — PEN Center USA West
Producer
Literary Awards for Best Teleplay
TV miniseries
1997
The Odyssey Executive Producer Nominated — Primetime Emmy
Award for Outstanding Miniseries
Tomorrow Never
Writer (screenplay — uncredited)[9]
Dies
Writer (additional screenplay material
The Prince of
1998 alongside Phillip LaZebnik, based on
Egypt
the Book of Exodus)
1999 Vendetta Director TV film
Fall from the Sky Writer TV film
2002
Collateral Damage Executive Producer
2003 The Human Stain Writer (screenplay)
2006 Orpheus Writer/Executive Producer TV film
Nominated — Satellite Award for
2008 Elegy Writer (screenplay)
Best Adapted Screenplay
2009 The Hessen Affair Writer
2014 Houdini Writer TV miniseries
Medici: Masters of TV series (1 episode, with Frank
2016 Writer/Co-creator
Florence Spotnitz)
Star Trek:
Writer, consulting producer TV series; 1 episode only as writer
Discovery
2017
On Cinema at the
Himself (cameo/actor) Webseries; 1 episode only as actor
Cinema