IN the aftermath of the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust, Red Notice star Dwayne Johnson has become the latest Hollywood power player to put the use of real firearms on film and TV sets on notice.
During the premiere of his upcoming Netflix blockbuster action film, the actor and producer behind such firepower-heavy films as Skyscraper and Rampage vowed that rubber guns would be the rule going forward for all of the projects made under his Seven Bucks Productions banner.
“I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can tell you, without an absence of clarity here, that any movie that we have moving forward with Seven Bucks Productions – any movie, any television show, or anything we do or produce – we won’t use real guns at all,” Johnson said in an interview with Variety.
“We’re going to switch over to rubber guns, and we’re going to take care of it in post-production. We’re not going to worry about the dollars; we won’t worry about what it costs.”
Johnson’s decision to prohibit real guns from his sets follows similar choices made by The Rookie showrunner, Alexi Hawley, and Eric Kripke, who oversees the streaming superhero series The Boys.
Meanwhile, over 200 members of the American Society of Cinematographers – including Emmy-winner Reed Morano and Oscar-nominee Bradford Young – have signed an open letter calling for a ban on functional firearms on movie and TV sets, and vowing not to work on sets where they are used.
In the latest update regarding the Rust shooting investigation, the attorney of the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed has alleged that the fatal incident might have been due to possible “sabotage”.
The attorney, Jason Bowles claimed that Reed loaded the prop gun with dummy rounds before her lunch break on Oct 21, before giving the gun to the assistant director, David Halls, which then eventually ended up with actor Alec Baldwin.
Bowles further reiterated that Reed does not know how live rounds ended up on set.
