Report: Bryan Singer officially dropped from Red Sonja film

Within a larger Hollywood Reporter piece published earlier today, which focuses on embattled Warner Bros. head Kevin Tsujihara and the casting of his alleged mistress, is a single paragraph seemingly confirming that alleged sexual predator Bryan Singer has been officially dropped from the Red Sonja reboot he had been under contract to direct.

Singer's exit is a development that some have been expecting since an article appeared in The Atlantic in January of this year, detailing allegations of sexual abuse of underage boys by the director, claims that Singer himself has vehemently denied, calling the article itself a "smear piece."

Repeated calls to Millennium Films, the company behind the Red Sonja reboot, have not been returned at press time. SYFY WIRE has also reached out to a representative for Bryan Singer, but has not heard back at press time.

The Hollywood Reporter paragraph in question reads as follows:

Lerner [Avi Lerner, of Millennium Films] made news recently when he hired Bryan Singer to direct a reboot of Red Sonja. After Singer was accused in an Atlantic article of sexually assaulting underage boys, Lerner dismissed the story as "agenda-driven fake news," then walked the statement back. Eventually, he dropped Singer from the project because he was unable to secure a domestic distributor.

Tatiana Siegel, one of two authors of that piece, has confirmed to SYFY WIRE that there is no misunderstanding in that paragraph, and that reporting by The Hollywood Reporter has shown that Singer was in fact removed from the film.

As was previously reported in SYFY WIRE, the planned Red Sonja film, a reboot of the 1985 Brigitte Nielsen-starring (and Arnold Schwarzenegger-co-starring) comics-based film built around a sword-bearing female warrior named Red Sonja, was put on hold as early as February of this year, with Millennium confirming to The Hollywood Reporter at that time both that the film was on hold and that it was not being shopped around at the European Film Market in Berlin that month.

There is no word yet on who could be in consideration to take Singer's place, though speculation abounds. SYFY WIRE's own list of potential women directors for the project, for instance, can be found here.