Bryan Singer, the embattled director whose career has been dormant for nearly a year after he was fired from his last film and accused of rape, is apparently charting a comeback. (Singer has denied the allegations.) According to The Hollywood Reporter, he is in talks to direct Millennium’s Red Sonja, a comic-book spin-off of Conan the Barbarian. The screenplay will be written by Ashley Miller (X-Men: First Class, which was produced by Singer). Per T.H.R., the project has been in development for over a decade, with Millennium hoping to turn it into a franchise fit for our superhero-dominated times.

The independent film company also sees the project as a means for Singer to rehab his image, sources at Millennium told T.H.R. He will reportedly get top dollar for taking on the film. Representatives for Millennium and Singer have not yet responded to Vanity Fair*’s request for comment about the Red Sonja negotiations.

Why, exactly, does Singer’s reputation need “rehabbing?” Last year, the director came under fire for repeatedly disappearing from the set of Bohemian Rhapsody, the Queen biopic he was tapped to direct. Twentieth Century Fox eventually dropped him from the movie and subsequently shut down the offices of his production company, Bad Hat Harry. In his defense, Singer claimed that he had missed days on the set due to a parent with a pressing health concern. Just a few days later, news broke that the director was facing a lawsuit stemming from a 2003 allegation that he had raped 17-year-old Cesar Sanchez-Guzman at a yacht party. Sanchez-Guzman’s suit was filed by lawyer Jeff Herman, who also represented Michael Egan, the man who accused Singer, among other Hollywood figures, of sexual assault in 2014; Egan eventually withdrew his cases, and Herman issued an apology to the accused. The Sanchez-Guzman case appeared to be ongoing as of May. Singer’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, vehemently denied the allegations on his client’s behalf.

Regardless, Singer’s career took a hit. In addition to getting replaced on Bohemian Rhapsody and losing his Fox outpost, he was also dropped as a producer on the FX series Legion. His E.P. role on The Gifted also underwent evaluation. Actress Jessica Chastain, set to star in the Singer-produced action movie X-Men: Dark Phoenix, made her feelings clear on the matter, tweeting a link to an article about the allegation against the director. “I do not feel beholden to anything. I’m going to speak my mind about any injustice that I see,” she later said in an interview.

So, Singer is still embroiled in a scandal, one that was seemingly poised to turn him into a permanent pariah. But it would appear that Millennium thinks that now is the time to rehab his image with a potential comic-book franchise—one with a rare female-centric story, no less. We’re sure every effort was put forth to find a female director before settling on Singer.