Did Bryan Singer’s Legal Troubles Get Him Fired From X-Men: Apocalypse?

Bryan Singer made his triumphant return to the X-Men franchise with Days of Future Past, a film that we here at We Got This Covered really enjoyed. We’re not the only ones either, as the flick garnered extremely positive reviews from critics and surpassed the franchise’s previous box office record in only nine days. It’s still going strong, too, and at the time of this writing has grossed over $610 million worldwide.

Singer not only made a great X-Men film, but gave the franchise new life and energy, which was meant to propel us into its already-announced sequel, X-Men: Apocalypse. However, the rug was pulled out from under us when Singer was sued for alleged sexual abuse of an underage male. Those legal troubles have kept the director out of any press for Days of Future Past, and as it turns out, may have cost him the directing job on Apocalypse. 

According to Radar Online, the powers that be over at 20th Century Fox are not worried about whether or not Singer is innocent, but they are concerned with how his ongoing legal battle will impact production on the film, which will need to start shooting soon to meet its pre-set release date of May 27th, 2016.

Now, this news should be taken with a Sentinel-sized grain of salt, because Radar Online is a gossip website with a pretty spotty track record. However, they could be right about this one, and the hesitation from the studio certainly makes sense. Bad publicity could be detrimental to the sequel, even if it seems to have had no effect on Days of Future Past‘s success. Additionally, this news has nothing to do with Singer’s guilt or innocence and is more a matter of problems that could arise from such a scandal. Others could come forward and sue Singer, causing even more headaches down the line, like court proceedings that run the risk of delaying production.

In any case, we’ll just have to sit back and see what happens. Singer has returned to Twitter, after remaining silent on his go-to social media outlet ever since the original allegations were filed. Perhaps he’s confident that these legal battles will be put behind him, and that he’ll be able to quickly return to work.

Now that Radar Online has posted their story, we should expect to see an official statement from either Singer or the studio soon.