Director Profile: BRYAN SINGER

Written by Anthony Watkins

Bryan Jay Singer was born on September 17, 1965 in New York City, New York. Raised in southern New Jersey in a Jewish family, Singer became interested in filmmaking during his teenage years. After high school, he attended New York City’s School of Visual Arts, before transferring to the University of Southern California. Through his film studies at USC, Singer met his future collaborators, composer and editor John Ottman and co-producer Kenneth Kokin.

 In 1988, shortly after graduation from USC, Singer wrote and directed his first short film, Lion’s Den. The film, budgeted at $16,000, starred Singer’s high school friend Ethan Hawke and centered on high-school buddies who reunite years after graduation (Marx). A couple years later, Singer would helm his first feature-length film, Public Access. In 1993, the film won the Critics Award at the Deauville Film Festival as well as the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

It was two years later, however, that Singer hit a breakthrough as a director with The Usual Suspects, a neo-noir crime drama that focuses on a survivor’s retelling of events leading up to a shootout of a deal gone wrong. Full of twists and turns, the film was a critical and commercial success and was nominated for 2 Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Kevin Spacey) and Best Screenplay and won both.

Singer's neo-noir crime drama The Usual Suspects (1995) was Singer's first hit as a young director.

Singer followed The Usual Suspects with Apt Pupil, a film based on Stephen King’s novel of a young boy who makes a deal with a Nazi war criminal. The film ended up not living up to its high expectations, and was scarred by a controversy involving the child actor being forced to perform a naked scene. The charges ended up being dropped, but nevertheless the film didn’t recover at the box office.

 At the turn of the millennium, Singer officially hit the jackpot with X-Men, a film based on the famous Marvel comics. The $75 million project reunited Singer with A-list actor Ian McKellen (Apt Pupil) and became a critical and commercial hit upon its release, being regarded as one of the best superhero films ever put on screen. Building on its success, Singer returned three years later to helm the sequel, X2: X-Men United, which many critics and audiences cited even as an improvement on the first installment. 

Upon its release in 2000, Singer's X-Men was regarded as one of the best comic-book adaptations ever put on the big screen.

Due to a dispute with 20th Century Fox, Singer did not return to direct the third film in the X-Men franchise, and instead turned to D.C. comics in Superman Returns. Unfortunately, the film was met with general criticism from critics and audiences, and underperformed at the box office, forcing the studio to scrap any hope of a sequel (Marx).

Singer’s next project was Valkyrie (2008), a World War II film starring Tom Cruise and based on the true story of an assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler by several German army officers. The film was met with mixed reviews and underachieved at the box office, but was still considered a respectable historical drama in the War canon.

After directing an interpretation of "Jack and the Beanstalk" with Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), Singer successfully reteamed with his beloved X-Men crew with X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), a film that has Wolverine go back in time to help alter events that lead to the destruction of mutants and humans alike. The film (as with Singer’s other X-Men films) was a critical and commercial hit, grossing $111 million in its opening weekend in the US and $233 million overall domestically (IMDB).

Singer's most recent project, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), reunited him with cast members he worked with nearly a decade earlier when he launched the X-Men saga with X-Men (2000) and X2: X-Men United (2003). 

Currently, Singer is in pre-production with X-Men: Apocalypse, the sequel to X-Men: Days of Future Past. The film is scheduled for release on May 27, 2016.

Trademarks

Most of Singer’s trademarks involve frequent collaborations. These include working with composer John Ottman for music (The Usual Suspects, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: Days of Future Past) cinematographer Tom Siegel (The Usual Suspects, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: Days of Future Past), writer Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie, Jack the Giant Slayer), and casting Ian McKellen (Apt Pupil, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: Days of Future Past). Also, typically Bryan Singer has one or more of his characters be alienated in some manner from other characters or their surroundings. One example would be Rogue in X-Men (2000).

Works Cited
IMDB. 2014. 16 Nov. 2014. <http://www.imdb.com>.

Marx, Rebecca. “Bryan Singer.” 2014. 16 Nov. 2014. The New York Times.
            <http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/193696/Bryan-Singer/biography>.