After eight years in exile, director Bryan Singer is mounting a comeback.
The “Superman Returns” helmer, who hasn’t worked in mainstream Hollywood since famously being fired from “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2017, has quietly directed a film that stars Oscar winner Jon Voight.
Singer shot the new film, described as a period drama that revolves around the relationship between a father and son, in Greece in 2023. Variety understands that Israeli filmmaker Yariv Horovoitz (“Rock the Kasbah”) is involved in the project.
One source who has seen the final cut but is not involved with the production describes it as “a really well made film with awards-season potential” but predicts that “it’s going to be a huge hotbed of controversy” due to the subject matter. The source describes the story as set in the Middle East in the late ’70s or early ’80s at a time when Israel occupied Lebanon. “It makes Israel look really bad and could be polarizing,” the source adds. Another source familiar with the project says the story follows an architect looking for redemption.
Singer’s movies, which include four “X-Men” outings, have made billions of dollars for major studios, including 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., and have won multiple Oscars for the likes of Kevin Spacey and Christopher McQuarrie (both for “The Usual Suspects”). As that rare combination of an auteur who makes commercial movies, he remained in demand even though he faced sexual misconduct allegations dating back to 1997, when two teenage boys filed a civil lawsuit claiming that they were ordered to strip naked for a scene in Singer’s “Apt Pupil.” Similar claims followed him throughout the ensuing decades. (He has never faced criminal charges.)
At the height of Hollywood’s #MeToo era, the Atlantic published a 2019 exposé that detailed Singer’s alleged sexual misdeeds involving minors. The article proved catastrophic for his career. (Singer has categorically denied ever having sex with, or a preference for, underage boys.) Separately, Fox fired him from “Bohemian Rhapsody” during production — a nearly unprecedented move on a film already under way — due to absences and chaotic conditions, behavior that allegedly also took place during the making of the studio’s “X-Men” movies.
Amid the controversies, Singer tried to reenter the mainstream with an $80 million remake of ’80s action film “Red Sonja” for Millennium Films. At the time, Millennium CEO Avi Lerner stood by Singer but eventually dropped him when he couldn’t secure a domestic distributor. As for his new film, one source says that a domestic distribution deal is imminent. It is unclear if international territories will be shopped at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival market.
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Variety previously reported that Singer was pitching a slate of three films set in Israel to would-be investors. He moved to Israel several years ago and has been working without an agent after being dropped by WME.
From Variety US