Update: Bryan Singer is officially back. And while his latest release, Monument, still hasn’t gotten much publicity, who’d thought that the film would actually get a theatrical release in 2026?
While Singer’s name appears on the posters, it seems the company behind the release, Bad Hat Harry Productions, hasn’t managed to secure a huge distribution deal. And that’s despite having actors Joe Mazzello and Jon Voight attached. The film opened in limited theaters last Friday with almost zero promotion, except for a trailer, an official website and some word of mouth.
There are currently three Rotten Tomatoes reviews for Monument – all of them positive. Don Shanahan from Film Obsessive wrote, “Monument finds itself in that very uncertain rut, both between the central architect and his important project and, externally, the storytelling yield of Bryan Singer.” Avi Offer from NYC Movie Guru summed up thoughts as, “Captivating, gripping, emotionally engrossing. A powerful protest against war, and a protest for love, compassion, peace, equality and tolerance.”
Watch the trailer for Bryan Singer’s Monument below.
Original Article: Bryan Singer hasn’t directed a movie since 2017, when 20th Century Fox fired him mid-shoot from Bohemian Rhapsody. At the time, reports of erratic on-set behavior came with allegations of sexual misconduct. The result was Hollywood cutting ties with the filmmaker. Now, after 8 or 9 years in exile, Singer is quietly attempting a comeback, and he’s chosen a project that’s already being described as both award-worthy and wildly controversial.
According to Variety, Singer shot a secret film in Greece in 2023 starring Oscar winner Jon Voight. The indie feature, made for under $10 million, is a father-son drama set against Israel’s occupation of Lebanon in the late ’70s or early ’80s. One source who’s seen the final cut called it “a really well-made film with awards-season potential”, but warned that “it’s going to be a huge hotbed of controversy.” Another insider added that the film “makes Israel look really bad and could be polarizing.”
This seems a long way from X-Men and Superman Returns. In fact, it almost feels like he’s trying to go back to his indie roots, when he did films like The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil. Singer has been living in Israel for the last five years, working without an agent after WME dropped him, and pitching projects directly to investors. This new film, directed under the radar with Israeli filmmaker Yariv Horowitz attached, appears to be his biggest effort since his Hollywood downfall.
The big question now is whether or not anyone in the U.S. will actually distribute it? Singer’s name alone could scare off most distributors. Studios once made billions off his films, which include four X-Men entries, Superman Returns, Valkyrie, and Bohemian Rhapsody (which earn $910 million worldwide despite the behind-the-scenes drama). But the Atlantic’s 2019 exposé detailing sexual misconduct allegations involving minors, which Singer has denied, calling the claims “outrageous, vicious, and completely false”, left his career in ruins.
His last real attempt at a comeback was Red Sonja in 2019, an $80 million remake that Millennium Films briefly pushed before dropping him when no distributor wanted to touch it. That seemed like the final nail in the coffin. And yet here we are, with Singer resurfacing through a low-budget period drama starring an actor who’s not exactly controversy-free himself.
It’s hard to separate the art from the artist these days. We’ve had to ask the same question with R. Kelly, Diddy, Woody Allen, Brett Ratner, and Victor Salva. Singer is betting that audiences, or at least some festival juries, are ready to reconsider him and his films.
But the difficult part is distribution for Monument. If the movie does surface at a major festival like Toronto, expect headlines that are less about the film and more about whether Bryan Singer deserves a second act.
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