Dwayne Johnson has pledged to stop using real guns on movies and shows produced by his company Seven Bucks. As he told Variety, he made the decision following the tragic events on the set of Rust, when a prop gun fired by Alec Baldwin killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
“First of all, I was heartbroken,” Johnson said Wednesday at the premiere of his new film Red Notice. “We lost a life. My heart goes out to her family and everybody on set. I’ve known Alec, too, for a very long time.”
He continued, “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.”
Fake prop guns don’t have the same weight as real prop guns, and they can’t fire convincing blanks. But Johnson doesn’t see that as problem. “We’re going to switch over to rubber guns, and we’re going to take care of it in post. We’re not going to worry about the dollars; we won’t worry about what it costs.”
“I love the movie business,” Johnson said. “There are safety protocols and measures that we have always taken in the movie business and we take very seriously, and these sets are safe sets, and we’re proud of that. But accidents do happen. And when something like this happens of this magnitude, [that is] this heartbreaking, I think the most prudent thing and the smartest thing to do is just pause for a second and really re-examine how you’re going to move forward and how we’re going to work together.”
He concluded by saying, “Any movie we do that Seven Bucks does with any studio, the rule is we’re not going to use real guns. That’s it.”
The Rust prop gun accident took place on October 21st and also injured the film’s director, Joel Souza, who has since been released from the hospital. Santa Fe County’s district attorney is currently mulling criminal charges. The accident was preceded by crew walking off the set to protest poor and unsafe working conditions. Both the assistant director who handed Baldwin the gun and the armorer who prepared the weapon have a history of safety issues on set.
Red Notice arrives on Netflix November 12th, and Johnson is also working on films such as Red One and the DC antihero flick Black Adam. Last month, he collaborated on the song “Face Off” with Tech N9ne.
