Sadly, this isn’t the first accident to happen on a film set…
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has been fatally shot on a New Mexico film set by actor Alec Baldwin and the tragedy has reminded people of a similar on-set incident which took place in 1993 and killed 28-year-old actor Brandon Lee.
Brandon, the son of actor and martial arts legend Bruce Lee, was making the fantasy movie The Crow when he was fatally shot by a prop gun whilst filming a death sequence. It was later discovered that the gun in question had been used in a previous scene, where a cartridge from a blank round had become lodged in its barrel.
When the time came to shoot Lee’s scene, firing the prop gun dislodged the trapped cartridge, resulting in the actor’s fatal injury. The death scene of Lee’s character remains in the film, although any footage shot during the tragedy was removed.
Following the incident in New Mexico this morning (October 22), Brandon Lee’s official Twitter account, run by his sister Shannon Lee, tweeted: “Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on “Rust”.
“No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.”
Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on “Rust”. No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period. 💔
— Brandon Bruce Lee (@brandonblee) October 22, 2021
One commenter on Twitter pointed out that it has been “almost 3 decades since Brandon Lee how does this happen.” Meanwhile, another added: “Did no one learn anything from what happened to Brandon Lee?”
After Lee’s on-set accident – which took place in March 1993 – the actor was taken to a hospital near the movie’s North Carolina set but was pronounced dead around six hours later.
There have been other notable on-set tragedies over the years. In 1982 a helicopter crashed on the California production of director John Landis’s sci-fi feature Twilight Zone: The Movie and killed three people. Actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen were fatally wounded after the vehicle hit the ground whilst they were filming an action sequence.
Following civil investigations, the tragedy instigated the implementation of new safety procedures for film sets and the film’s production company, Warner Bros, set up new committees to establish improved safety standards.
However, accidents have continued to happen.
In 2015, a collision on a railway track on the set of Gregg Allman biopic Midnight Rider killed camera worker Sarah Jones. She was hit by debris and pushed onto the railway track after a train hit a hospital bed in a scene. Following the incident, Jones’ family sued the company which owned the train track and won $11.2 million in damages.
And in 2016, a worker on the set of sci-fi sequel Blade Runner 2049 died in Budapest. Production company Alcon Entertainment said at the time that the worker was “underneath a platform, upon which the set was constructed, when it suddenly collapsed.”
They are only the most well-publicised; an Associated Press investigation from 2016 revealed that at least 43 had people died on TV and film sets in America alone since 1990.
