Peter Hewitt

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

Career Upon graduating from the 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 (1991). Although not as big a success as the original, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), 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 series of children's novels by Mary Norton. He remained in England to direct 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, which 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 BAFTA Award for Best Short Film 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey As Pete Hewitt 1995 Tom and Huck 1997 The Borrowers 1999 Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? 2002 Thunderpants as Pete Hewitt 2004 Garfield: The Movie Thunderbirds 2006 Zoom 2009 The Maiden Heist I Want Candy 2014 Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend? Direct-to-video 2019 Surprise

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

His paternal cousin Simon Hewitt was a longtime animatronic designer for Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London until it permanently closed in 2005.