In the wake of a sexual abuse lawsuit filed against filmmaker Bryan Singer, the X-Men: Days Of Future Past director skipped out on much of the press tour leading up to this weekend’s release of the seventh installment of the mutant superhero franchise. Yesterday, attorneys for Singer filed to dismiss the charges against him and put the entire lawsuit behind him.
According to Variety, Singer’s attorneys filed the motion on May 21 in a Hawaii federal court, where the alleged abuse occurred in 1999. In the motion, Singer claimed to have not been in Hawaii during that period and was instead in Canada filming the original X-Men. Singer also says the timing of the lawsuit was simply intended to bring it attention ahead of the release of Days Of Future Past, and that many of the accusations made in the lawsuit are easily disproven.
“The timing of this action and inclusion of its sordid (and provably false) allegations are nothing more than tools being used to embarrass, harass, and pressure Singer and precipitate a shakedown of a perceived ‘deep pocket,'” stated the motion for dismissal.
The lawsuit was filed by Michael Egan on April 15, who filed similar suits against three other producers, accusing the four filmmakers of coercing underage teenagers into sexual activity. (Egan was 17 at the time of the alleged abuse.)
One of the other producers, David Neuman, filed a similar motion to dismiss the lawsuit against him this week.
