Did Millennium Quietly Drop Bryan Singer From the 'Red Sonja' Movie?

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | March 13, 2019 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | March 13, 2019 |

The Hollywood Reporter have been covering the story of Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara and his alleged affair with small time actress Charlotte Kirk, a relationship seemingly built on him and many other powerful men promising her film roles in exchange for sex. The entire story is fascinating and messy and worth reading, but in the latest update to the tale, The Hollywood Reporter may have quietly dropped even bigger news about a certain Mr. Bryan Singer. Heard of him?

In discussing Kirk’s alleged dealings with many powerful Hollywood men, the piece details how Brett Ratner - because of course it was Brett Ratner - encouraged her to talk to Avi Lerner, head of Millennium Films. He apparently worked for over two years to help her secure roles, most of which never materialized. The piece also mentions a May 2017 lawsuit filed against Millennium that alleged Lerner hired ‘unqualified girlfriends’ as producers, and that the Jane Doe involved in the lawsuit was told these women ‘were valuable to the company because they procured prostitutes for actors and for Lerner’s friends.’ This case was apparently settled.

Avi Lerner has never been sleaze-free so this story does not surprise much, but one detail The Hollywood Reporter reduces to one paragraph does:

Lerner made news recently when he hired Bryan Singer to direct a reboot of Red Sonja. After Singer was accused in an Atlantic magazine article of sexually assaulting underaged 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.

The project had previously been put on the back-burner, but that was no guarantee Singer was off directorial duties. Now it seems he’s gone.

So… is that it?

Remember when this dude was defending an accused child rapist being paid allegedly $10m to direct a Red Sonja movie by playing the ‘fake news’ card? Remember how a massive expose into 20+ years of one of the biggest open secrets in the entertainment industry wasn’t enough to put him off paying this accused abuser millions of dollars to make a high-profile project centered on one of the most iconic women in comic book history? Remember how said accused abuser has a long history of bad on-set behaviour (when he bothers to turn up), costing studios who knows how much money? So all of that wasn’t enough for Millennium. They had to wait until it was too costly for them to continue digging their boots in, then let the story come out in an unrelated piece because screw owning up to your mistakes, right?

Still, I’ll take late action done for bad faith reasons over no action at all. Now, give Red Sonja to a woman director. The original Red Sonja, Brigitte Nielsen, suggested Susanne Bier, which feels like a solid choice. I would go with Karyn Kusama.