12 February 2019
Newsdesk
The much-anticipated Red Sonja remake has been shelved amid director Bryan Singer's fight against underage sex allegations.
Millennium Films bosses have scrapped plans to start shooting the movie in Bulgaria later this year (19) as Singer battles accusations he had sex with teenagers, which were printed in a recent The Atlantic expose.
The X-Men director has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, calling The Atlantic's article a "homophobic smear piece", and he has not officially been removed from the Red Sonja film, but the project's producer Avi Lerner has taken back comments he made last month (Jan19) about supporting Singer, insisting what he said "came out the wrong way".
But Lerner insisted last week (ends08Feb19) he still plans to wait to hear if his director is guilty before deciding Red Sonja's future, adding, "I think victims should be heard and this allegation should be taken very, very seriously. I just don’t agree to judge by Twitter. I want him (the accused) to be judged by the court."
The Red Sonja news comes days after BAFTA bosses removed the filmmaker from contention in its Outstanding British Film category for Bohemian Rhapsody due to the allegations.
They announced they would be suspending his name until he was cleared of the allegations made against him.
Singer retained a director credit for the Queen biopic even though he didn't complete the film - he was fired by movie bosses in December, 2017 for failing to report back to the set after a Thanksgiving break.
The embattled filmmaker was first linked to the Red Sonja remake last year (18). Ashley Miller, who worked with Singer on X-Men: First Class, was slated to write the screenplay for the film, which has been in development for over 10 years.
In 2008, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and his then-girlfriend Rose McGowan signed on to remake the movie, which originally starred Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1985, but the project never came to fruition.
