Nicholas Meyer
By Sean Tuohy
This week's Badass Writer is a man who boldly went where no man had gone before and saved a multi-million dollar franchise. Nicholas Meyer is a novelist, screenwriter, filmmaker, and all-around badass who fuses a love for history and sci-fi to create some of the most original stories for the page or screen.
Meyer helped save several long running series during his career. He started with novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and then moved on to putting “Star Trek” back on the galactic right track to blockbuster millions and acclaim. It seems whatever Meyer touches comes back to life and makes a ton of money.
Born in New York City, Meyer attended college in Iowa. After college he penned The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a Sherlock Holmes mystery featuring the detective strung out on cocaine as he tries to stop war from breaking out. The novel spent 40 weeks on top of the bestsellers list before being turned in to a box office smash (Meyer wrote the screenplay). The following year, Meyer wrote Time After Time, a screenplay involving writer H.G. Welles chasing down serial killer Jack The Ripper in 1979 San Francisco, which he was able to sell to Warner Brothers and make his directorial debut. The film was a hit and starred Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Welles.
Now a hotshot director, Meyer was chosen to helm "Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan."
Set phasers to full Sean nerd.
The first "Star Trek" film is...awful. It looks great and the soundtrack is wonderful, but the movie has no plot and is as much fun as watching me eat a sandwich. Meyer, who had never seen "Star Trek," breathed new life into the failing series. Meyer was able to jump start the series and turn "Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan" into one of highest grossing movies of the year. Yes, if it was not for Meyer there may not be a decent "Star Trek" movie to watch and millions of nerds like me all over the world would have nothing to talk about.
After enriching humans and Vulcans alike, Meyer moved on to direct the award-winning mini-series "The Day After," which told the story about a town in the aftermath of a nuclear war. The series did well, but Meyer had so many issues with the television show's producers that he vowed never to work in television again.
He ended up going back to the film series he brought back to life, but this time to add the final chapter. Meyer wrote and directed the classic "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country." The movie was a hit and we're sure several Hollywood producers added third swimming pools to their fourth and fifth homes.
Meyer is still writing and directing. His next project is the highly sought after Teddy Roosevelt biopic based on the award-winning series of books that Daniel Ford devoured and recites when he gets a few drinks in him.
If Meyer ever stops working, we assume it will be because Ricardo Montalban as finally gotten his revenge.