Following the filing of two lawsuits accusing him of sexually abusing underage boys, Bryan Singer, the director of X-Men: Days of Future Past, skipped the premiere of his own film on Saturday night.
According to Variety, the New York-based premiere saw the appearances of the film's high-profile cast, including Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman and Ellen Page, and several hundred ecstatic X-Men fans, but Singer himself was absent from the Javits Conventional Center last night.
Those that were poked about Singer's no-show either deflected their questions or praised his work as an artist, including Stewart, calling him a visionary, actor Shawn Ashmore and 20th Century Fox studio chief Jim Gianopulos.
Additionally, screenwriter Simon Kinberg was unsure about whether or not Singer would be returning for the next X-Men movie, X-Men: Apocalypse, which is already scheduled for a 2016 release, when he was asked. Although producer Hutch Parker said it was his hope that he would be able to get Singer to return.
When Parker was asked himself about the sexual allegations against the director, he retorted bluntly that he was not going to talk about that.
It was last month that Singer was first accused of sexually abusing young boys. Whether or not these reports will continue to haunt the upcoming superhero movie will have to be determined on May 23.