Audiences worldwide are getting ready to see one of the most talked-about, if controversial, remakes of the year as the 2024 film version of The Crow hits cinemas. The Crow, a dark 1989 comic book, was first introduced to viewers back in 1994, with Brandon Lee as the titular gothic superhero, a rock musician also known as Eric Draven who is resurrected from the dead to seek vengeance against the gang who murdered him and his fiancée. This time around, it’s Bill Skarsgård and FKA twigs in the lead roles, and Snow White and the Huntsman’s Rupert Sanders is in the director’s chair taking over from Alex Proyas .
When the original movie was released 30 years ago, it was met with positive reviews and gained a passionate cult following over the years. However, it was also marred by the tragic death of its 28-year-old star in a freak on-set accident. Lee, the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee , had followed in the footsteps of his famous father – who died when he was eight years old – by training in martial arts and studying acting.
He appeared in the movies Legacy of Rage, Laser Mission and the Dolph Lundgren buddy cop film Showdown In Little Tokyo. The rising star was then cast as Eric in the gothic fantasy film The Crow, which was set to be his breakthrough role, and was happily engaged to his girlfriend Eliza Hutton. Then, in March 1993, Lee had finished almost all of his scenes for the movie, and was filming a sequence where he is shot by thugs after entering an apartment.
Funboy, played by actor Michael Massee, was set to fire a Smith & Wesson Model 629 .44 Magnum revolver at Lee from 12-15ft away when he walked in. A previous scene using the same prop gun was fitted with dummy cartridges, which look more realistic on film than blank rounds.
However, while commercial dummy cartridges are fitted with bullets but no powder and primer (which initiate the propellant combustion), the prop crew made their own, removing the powder but unknowingly leaving the live primer in the cartridge. At some point, the revolver was discharged and the bullet was driven into the barrel where the squib load became stuck. During Lee’s scene, the dummy cartridges were replaced with blank rounds, which do not have bullets but have powder and primer.
But when Massee fired the gun, the bullet which had been trapped in the barrel was fired with virtually the same force had the weapon been loaded with a live round. The bullet struck Lee in the abdomen, with the actor falling backwards instead of forwards as was planned in the scene. The crew initially believed he was still acting, but when it became apparent he was not, the actor was rushed to the New Hanover Regional Medical Centre where he underwent six hours of surgery in attempts to save his life.
However, it proved too late. Lee was pronounced dead on March 31, 1993, at the age of 28, and the shooting was ruled an accident due to negligence. Massee, who died in 2016 aged 64, took a break from acting and never saw The Crow, which was released posthumously, having been traumatised by the tragedy.
In an interview with Extra 15 years later, he said: ‘I just took a year off and I went back to New York and didn’t do anything. I didn’t work. What happened to Brandon was a tragic accident.
.. I don’t think you ever get over something like that.
’ Rules around prop weapons on film sets were strengthened following Lee’s death, having been introduced after the death of actor Jon-Erik Hexum nine years prior. During a break in filming for the CBS series Cover Up, Hexum was playing with a firearm, not realising a blank was still in the prop gun, and accidentally shot himself. The 26-year-old died six days later from his injuries.
Tragically since then, in 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, was killed in an accident on the set of Rust, when star and producer Alec Baldwin was shooting a scene that required a prop gun and discharged the weapon. Baldwin was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on the set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. The star maintained that he pulled back the hammer – but not the trigger – and the gun fired, and pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter .
In July, a judge dismissed the trial following a motion by his legal team over evidence they claimed was hidden. The Crow’s director Sanders has since confirmed that, given the tragedies involving both Lee and Hutchins – with filming taking place only months after her death in 2022 – real guns were banned on the set. Acknowledging the myriad dangers of a working film set, he insisted that ‘safety is number one priority’.
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“So I said, categorically, “We will have no firing weapons on set,” which means we didn’t have one gun that could have had a live round or a blank round anywhere near it ever, so that no projectile could go in.’ Instead, The Crow used ‘rubber or metal decoys that are functional but have no firing mechanism’. The Crow (2024) is released in cinemas on Friday, August 23.
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