Bryan Singer reveals Excalibur remake cancellation

X-Men franchise director Bryan Singer has revealed that his forthcoming remake of John Boorman's 1981 classic Excalibur has been cancelled.

Speaking to SFX, the Battlestar Galactica director explained that his modern retelling of the King Arthur legend was canned due to Warner Bros. already having a similar project in production.

"Yeah, unfortunately it is no longer going to happen, I was really enthused to do it. I'm a fan of John Boorman's movie and it was my intention to get it going after Jack the Giant Killer was completed.

The project was with Warner Bros and what happened is that another King Arthur project was brought to them during that time. Basically, it was just more ready to go into production than ours was. That is why our version of Excalibur ended up being negated.

But when that happened, it allowed me to go straight into developing Battlestar Galactica - which I think will be really exciting."

So there's a silver lining for the former Superman director. The aforementioned Jack the Giant Killer is in post production and will arrive in cinemas mid next year and stars Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Warwick Davis, Eddie Marsan, and Ewen Bremner.

Jack the Giant Killer Film Page