Jon Peters
| Jon Peters | |
|---|---|
| Born |
John H. Peters June 2, 1945 Van Nuys, California |
| Occupation | Movie Producer |
| Years active | 1976–2013 |
Jon Peters (born John H. Peters; June 2, 1945) is an American movie producer.
Peters was born in Van Nuys, California, the son of Helen (née Pagano), a receptionist, and Jack Peters, a cook who owned a Hollywood diner. He is of Cherokee (father) and Italian (mother) descent. His mother's family owned a renowned Rodeo Drive salon in Beverly Hills. He has a son, Christopher Peters, who works for him now. Jack Peters died when his son was 10, and Helen later remarried.
Peters went into the family hair styling business on Rodeo Drive in Hollywood, where he made many film industry connections. Peters designed a short wig that Barbra Streisand wore for the comedy For Pete's Sake (1974), and the couple began a relationship. He produced Streisand's album Butterfly (1974) and gained a producing credit on Streisand's remake of A Star Is Born (1976), although the extent of his contribution has been disputed. He worked under Peter Guber for the next 10 years, with whom he headed Sony Pictures Entertainment for two years until Guber fired him. The two men were the subject of the book Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters.
In the early 1990s, he bought the rights to the Superman film franchise from Warner Bros. In his Q&A/comedy DVD, An Evening With Kevin Smith, writer/director Kevin Smith related an anecdote about working for Peters when he was hired to write a script for a new Superman movie, then called Superman Reborn, and later renamed Superman Lives. According to Smith, Peters had expressed disdain for most of Superman's iconic characteristics by demanding that Superman was never to fly or appear in his trademark costume. He also suggested Sean Penn as being ideal for the role, based on his performance as a death row inmate in Dead Man Walking saying that Penn had the eyes of a "caged animal, a fucking killer." Peters then demanded that the third act of the film include a fight between Superman and a giant spider, to be unveiled in an homage to King Kong. Peters later produced the 1999 steampunk western Wild Wild West, the finale of which features a giant mechanical spider.
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