Bryan Singer is working on a self-financed documentary about himself, and “his struggles.”
That’s the exclusive from Variety. Singer plans to address the allegations of sexual misconduct and cover his attempt at reviving his stalled career. This won’t be fair and balanced.
What I find even more interesting about this write-up is the revelation that Singer has been living in Israel these past few years and is looking to make three low-budget narrative features set in and around that country.
Singer is going back to his indie roots. People tend to forget that before ‘X-Men,’ ‘Superman’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ Singer was an indie darling with “The Usual Suspects” and “Apt Pupil.”
Variety goes on to say that Singer, who is working without an agent, has been meeting with would-be investors about backing the films, one of which is set in the 1970s. They would be made for $10 million apiece.
Back in 2018, a storm was slowly but surely brewing over the writer-director’s rumored past. It felt like it was just around the corner and ready to explode into the zeitgeist. In fact, many were just waiting for the bomb to come down after word came out of his erratic behavior on the set of the Freddy Mercury biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody."
His time did finally come when a series of tweets appeared from a man named Justin Smith, who alleged that Singer sexually assaulted him in the early aughts.
Amidst all the chaos of Weinstein, Spacey, Cosby and company, it had appeared that Singer’s own day of reckoning was here.
Let’s go back in time for a second. After directing the 1995 Oscar-winning hit “ The Usual Suspects,” Singer was a hot commodity in Hollywood. However, only a year after winning the statuette, in 1997, a 14 year old extra accused the director of asking him and other minors to film a shower scene naked for “Apt Pupil.” The suit was dismissed for insufficient evidence.
Since then, rumors have been abound about Singer, but nobody came forward. Did the “Apt Pupil” incident scare people away? Finally, actor Michael Egan III, in April of 2014, accused Singer of sexual assault in an incident that occurred five years prior. Singer had allegedly drugged and raped Egan, who was a minor, in Hawaii and Los Angeles.
Singer has denied the accusations, proclaiming them to be “outrageous, vicious, and completely false.” The suit was withdrawn by Egan, but yet another one surfaced from a British man alleging similar behavior around the time of “Superman Returns.” Nonetheless, Singer continued making movies.
Singer has sworn that all of these allegations being thrown against him have been nothing more than smears.
It’ll be interesting to see if Singer can actually get these Israeli productions made. Will he use English speaking actors or Israeli ones? He speaks Hebrew so it wouldn’t be a stretch to think he’ll be making foreign language films.