Last month, the film industry saw the devasting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the western film Rust. Her death directly connected to a real gun loaded with real live rounds that was presented to actor Alec Baldwin and was fired during a rehersal leading to Hutchins and director Joel Souza being shot, the latter suriving his injuries.
The tradgey has led to folks reconsidering the use of real guns on sets and led to the television show The Rookie to switch over to airsoft guns adding mussle flash/smoke in post using digital effects, something that already is common and cost effective.
Actor and producer Dwayne Johnson was on the red carpet at the premiere of his Netflix action flick Red Notice, revealing his production company Seven Bucks Productions is committed to using rubber guns on projects moving forward.
“Any movie we have moving forward at Seven Bucks Productions, movie or television show…we won’t use real guns at all. We’re going to switch over to rubber guns. We’re going to take care of it in post. We’re not going to worry about the dollars.”
You can watch the exchange on the red carpet below.
Most recently they’ve been invovled with Jumanji: The Next Level, Jungle Curise, Red Notice, Black Adam, and Shazam!: Fury of The Gods. Other projects that haven’t started filming include sequels to Hobbs & Shaw, Jumanji, and Jungle Cruise.
The key project there would be the Hobbs & Shaw sequel as guns are huge part of the Fast & Furious franchise and films directed by David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde), a former stuntman and stunt coordinator.
While Seven Bucks isn’t a major studio, this could be a growing trend among other production companies leading to studios making similar committments to using non-firing weapons on set or simply pivoting to rubber guns that can’t be confused with real guns, leading to a safer set for everyone.
Their next film Red Notice debuts November 12 on Netflix.
SOURCE: VARIETY
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