Her mother, Patricia Meyers (née Lemisch),[6] was an interior designer who also worked as a volunteer with the Head Start Program and the Home for the Blind.

[4] Two years after coming to Los Angeles, Meyers was able to quit her job to focus on a career in screenwriting and took film-making classes where she connected with directors such as Martin Scorsese.

The pair became friends and, along with Harvey Miller, created the script for the comedy Private Benjamin (1980) together, a film about a spoiled young woman who joins the U.S. Army after her husband dies on their wedding night during sex.

Released to a mixed reception by critics, the collaboration became a moderate box office with a gross of $12.4 million,[16] but received multiple Golden Globe nominations, including Best Actress nods for Long and Barrymore.

[18] Hawn reportedly disliked their screenplay and hired Buck Henry for a major overhaul, prompting the trio to go into arbitration to settle their differences.

[19] While neither Meyers nor Shyer became involved in producing or directing the film, it fared slightly better at the box office than Irreconcilable Differences, garnering $26.3 million in total.

[20] Meyers eventually returned to producing with Baby Boom (1987), a film about a New York City female executive, who out of the blue becomes the guardian of her distant cousin's 14-month-old daughter.

The catalyst for the project was a series of situations that Meyers and Shyer and their friends had experienced while managing a life with a successful career and a growing family.

[24] In 1990, Meyers and Shyer, working from earlier material for the first time, re-teamed with Keaton to remake the 1950 Vincente Minnelli film Father of the Bride.

Starring Steve Martin as a father losing his daughter and his bank account at the same time, their 1991 version was released to generally positive reception.

[30] Written for and starring Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte, the film was not well received by critics but grossed over $30 million in box-office receipts in the United States.

[33][34] Having turned down Paramount CEO Sherry Lansing's offer to direct the 1996 comedy blockbuster The First Wives Club,[7] Meyers eventually agreed on making her directorial debut with The Parent Trap (1998), following the signing of a development deal with Walt Disney Pictures in 1997.

[35] A remake of the same-titled 1961 original based on Erich Kästner's novel Lottie and Lisa, it starred Lindsay Lohan in her motion picture debut, in a dual role of estranged twin sisters who try to reunite their long-divorced parents, played by Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson.

[36] In 1998, following the success of The Parent Trap and her separation from Shyer, Disney's Touchstone Pictures chairman Joe Roth asked Meyers to reconstruct an original script named Head Games about a man who gains the power to hear everything women are thinking, an idea originally conceived by The King of Queens producers Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith.

[34] Subsequently, Meyers penned two drafts of the script before agreeing to direct, but as Roth left the studio in January 2000, Disney dismissed the film and the project eventually went to Paramount.

[38][39] Following her divorce, Meyers wrote and directed the post-divorce comedy Something's Gotta Give (2003), starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson as a successful 60-something and 50-something, who find love for each other at a different time of life, despite being complete opposites.

While critical reaction to the film as a whole was more measured,[40] Something's Gotta Give received generally favorable notice and became a surprise box-office hit following its North American release, eventually grossing US$266.6 million worldwide, mostly from its international run.

Released to mixed reviews from critics, the film became a global box office success, grossing $205 million worldwide, mostly from its international run.

It starred Meryl Streep as a successful bakery owner and single mother of three who starts a secret affair with her ex-husband, played by Alec Baldwin, ten years after their divorce – only to find herself drawn to another man: her architect Adam (portrayed by Steve Martin).

[45] The film was met with mixed reviews from critics, who declared it rather predictable despite fine work by an appealing cast, but became another commercial hit for Meyers upon its Christmas Day opening release in the United States.

Father of the Bride Part 3(ish) was released on September 25, 2020, exclusively through Netflix, while also streaming on the service's YouTube and Facebook pages.

In April 2022, Netflix announced Meyers would write, direct and produce a new feature film for the streaming service, an untitled ensemble comedy.

[4] Meyers' protagonists are often affluent and live in luxurious homes, which she says is meant to emphasize that they are successful women who can afford to create beautiful, comfortable spaces for themselves.

'"[62] Scholarship and criticism of Meyers' oeuvre has discussed the postfeminist aesthetics and ideologies that her films embody, in which wealthy, successful, and independent women often play the protagonists.

[63] In a 2009 New York Times profile of Meyers, writer Daphne Merkin points out that her films sometimes have the quality of "tidy unreality," which is the aspect of her filmmaking that often draws harsh criticism.

Katarzyna Paszkiewicz asserts that Meyers' ability to simultaneously carve out a particular, feminized niche in her work, while still providing mainstream (and even male) audiences with "what they want," has made her the most successful commercial female filmmaker.