Brandon Lee’s Family Reacts To Alec Baldwin’s Fatal On-Set Accident
The family of the late Brandon Lee reacts to the tragic news from the set of Rust.
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The tragic news that 42 year old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has died after the firing of a prop gun reportedly discharged by Alec Baldwin, for some, is darkly familiar. In March 1993, Brandon Lee — son of the martial arts legend Bruce Lee — died after being shot by a prop gun while filming The Crow. Now Lee’s family has responded to Hutchins’ passing with an emotional tweet.
The message came over Brandon Lee’s official Twitter account, which is maintained by the late actor’s family. Lee’s family wrote that their “hearts go out” to Hutchins’ loved as well as Rust director Joel Souza, who was injured in the incident, but has since been released from the hospital according to The Independent. The tweet continued with, “No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.” You can see the tweet below.
As it was reported by the Los Angeles Times in 1993, Brandon Lee died after being shot by a .44-caliber bullet that should not have been in the prop gun fired by Michael Massee as he was playing Funboy, one of the film’s villains. No charges were ever filed against Massee or anyone else. As CNN recalls, District Attorney Jerry Spivey said at the time that while negligence was at play in Lee’s death, there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. That didn’t stop Massee — who died in 2016 from stomach cancer at the age of 61 — from shouldering an unbearable weight for the rest of his life. Nor has it stopped conspiracy theories about Lee’s death from spreading almost as soon as news broke.
So it should be no surprise that the tragic events of yesterday on the set of Rust should bring back painful memories for Brandon Lee’s loved ones. There haven’t been a lot of details released yet. All that’s known for sure is that Hutchins was killed and Souza wounded after the firing of a prop gun on the set of Rust. Alec Baldwin, the film’s lead and executive producer, was reportedly holding the gun. According to CNN, a distraught Baldwin was spotted in the parking lot of the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office after being questioned about the incident. According to a statement, “Detectives are investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged.” No criminal charges have been made.
Rust is a western action film set in the 1880’s. Alec Baldwin plays the titular outlaw Harland Rust, who goes on the run with his grandson Lucas (Brady Noon), who has been sentenced to death after the accidental death of a rancher. News of Supernatural‘s Jensen Ackles’ addition to the cast just broke a week and a half ago. Ackles was cast as legendary U.S. Marshal Wood Helm who pursues Rust and his grandson. The fleeing pair also have to deal with Travis Fimmel (Vikings) as the bounty hunter Fenton “Preacher” Lang.
For the time being, however, production on Rust has halted. Per Deadline, a spokesperson for Rust Movies Productions LLC said the cast and crew are “absolutely devastated.” They added that the film’s production has been stopped for “an undetermined period of time.”
