A commercially successful writer who scripted David Cronenberg's fine adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dead Zone" (1983) and has recently specialized in action/adventure "blockbusters", Jeffrey Boam has also produced and occasionally directed for TV. He got his first break when director Ulu Grosbard optioned a script he had written and hired him to do a rewrite on "Straight Time" (1978), on which Boam eventually shared writing credit with Alvin Sargent and Edward Bunker. Grosbard also hired Boam as assistant director, although the screenplay he had optioned was never made. It was five years before "Dead Zone," Boam's second--and first solo--credit. He was also associate producer on the film, which focused on a man who finds himself with second sight after surviving a near-fatal accident. In 1987, Boam co-wrote "The Lost Boys", a tongue-in-cheek yet nevertheless frightening vampire story. That same year came the release of "Innerspace", which Boam and Chip Poser adapted from Poser's story about a man (Dennis Quaid) who is miniaturized and then injected into the body of a hypochondriac. He also acted in a bit role in the film.

Boam's profile in Hollywood increased in 1989 when he wrote the final screenplay for "Lethal Weapon 2" and subsequently co-wrote "Lethal Weapon 3" (1992) as well. In between, came the highly entertaining "Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade" (1989), which some critics felt was the most full-bodied of the three "Jones" films. In this one, the audience was introduced to Sean Connery as Harrison Ford's father and also saw River Phoenix as a young Indy giving backstory on the character. Boam's work in TV has been sporadic due to his feature film assignments, but he did form Boam/Cuse Productions in 1988 with Carlton Cuse, in part to do some TV work. Subsequently, Boam wrote the pilot for and was one of the executive producers on the short-lived "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." (Fox, 1993). He also made his TV directorial debut in 1993 helming an episode of HBO's "Tales From the Crypt", in which a girl is tricked into becoming the sacrifice to a mummy but turns the tide on the trickster. In 1996, Boam acted as co-producer and screenwriter of "The Phantom", inspired by the Lee Falk comic strip. At the time of his death, he reportedly had completed a script for the fourth installment in the Indiana Jones films.