Peter Hewitt (director)

Peter Hewitt (born 9 October 1962, Brighton, England) is an English film director and writer.

Not to be confused with the similarly-named English actor and director Peter Howitt.
Peter Hewitt
Born (1962-10-09) 9 October 1962
Brighton, East Sussex, England
Other namesPete Hewitt
OccupationFilm director
Years active1989–present

Career

Upon graduating from England's National Film and Television School in 1990, Hewitt flew to the United States with his BAFTA award-winning short film, The Candy Show, in hand. Once there, he called executives from major Hollywood studios and asked if he could show them his film. Soon after, he landed an agent and made his feature film directorial debut with Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Although not as big a success as the original, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, the movie made a profit.

He turned to TV next, directing the first two hours of the miniseries Wild Palms. He directed Disney's Tom and Huck in 1995 which was based on Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Hewitt returned to the U.K. to film The Borrowers, loosely based on a children's novel by Mary Norton of the same name. He remained in England to helm Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999), then tried his hand at TV work again with The Princess of Thieves (2001), filmed in Romania but featuring a mostly British cast, including a young Keira Knightley as Robin Hood's daughter, Gwyn.

Hewitt co-wrote the script for his next film, Thunderpants. It was filmed in the U.K. Hewitt later went on to direct a few other movies, most notably the 2004 film adaptation of the comic strip Garfield and the 2006 Tim Allen superhero comedy film Zoom (the latter of which was a massive box office flop, only being able to recoup $12.5 million of its $75.6 million budget). More recently, he directed Home Alone 5: The Holiday Heist, which was produced for television, first aired on ABC Family (now Freeform) in 2012, and never received a theatrical release, but it was released on DVD in 2013.

Filmography

Film
Year Title Director Writer Producer Notes
1989 The Candy Show Yes Yes No BAFTA Award for Best Short Film
1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Yes No No As Pete Hewitt
1995 Tom and Huck Yes No No
1997 The Borrowers Yes No No
1999 Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? Yes No No
2002 Thunderpants Yes Yes Yes as Pete Hewitt
2004 Garfield: The Movie Yes No No
Thunderbirds No Story No
2006 Zoom Yes No No
2009 The Maiden Heist Yes No Executive
I Want Candy No Yes No
2014 Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend? Yes No No Direct-to-video
2019 Surprise Yes Yes Yes

Television
Year Title Notes
1993 Wild Palms Mini-series, 1 episode
1996 Tales from the Crypt Episode "Confession"
2001 Princess of Thieves TV movie
2012 Home Alone: The Holiday Heist
2018 Christmas at the Palace

Trivia
  • According to the DVD commentary for Garfield: The Movie, Peter Hewitt had expressed interest in directing a Garfield sequel. Hewitt later became attached to direct the 2006 movie Zoom, and so he became unavailable to direct the Garfield sequel, which was instead directed by Tim Hill. This is ironic, because Peter Hewitt is British and Tim Hill is American, and the Garfield sequel took place in Hewitt's native country of England.
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