Rupert Sanders’ “The Crow” is a new take on the dark 1989 comic book, but there is one element of the franchise’s history that the director was determined not to replicate.
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During the production of the 1994 film adaptation of “The Crow,” star Brandon Lee was accidentally shot and killed on set due to an accident by the film’s prop department. That tragedy was echoed decades later on the set of “Rust” in Oct. 2021, when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot due to real rounds being present in a prop gun held by Alec Baldwin.
Given that Sanders shot his film in 2022, both incidents reinforced the director’s insistence on having as safe a set as possible.
“Safety is a number one priority,” he said. “Film sets are very dangerous. There are fast moving cars with cranes stuck on the top. There are stunt guys falling on high wires down steps. Even just walking around a set at night with rain machines and lights — you’re working in an industrial environment. So it’s dangerous. You have to be safe. The first day I met with the special effects department and the armorer, who was great, in Prague. They were very safety-conscious. They follow all the same guidelines as the military when dealing with weapons, but I didn’t even want to risk that .”
“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,” he continued. “They’re all Airsoft guns, and some of them are just rubber or metal decoys that are functional but have no firing mechanism.”
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“The Crow” reboot stars “It” and “John Wick 4” actor Bill Skarsgård as Eric Draven, who is killed alongside his girlfriend Shelly (FKA Twigs). In a limbo between life and death, Eric makes it his mission to avenge their murders. In his interview with Variety , Sanders championed the use of Airsoft guns on set instead of real guns.
“The beauty of the Airsoft is that the slide on a Glock will still move back, but then you have to add the shell casing,” the filmmaker said. “You have to add a muzzle flash and smoke, but that was a price worth paying. It took a fair bit of money out of my very limited visual effects budget, but I think it was worth it. The visual effects on this movie were very much in-camera. We were mainly a location shoot with set extension. So you have to balance where you spend the money when you don’t have a massive budget to do visual effects. But to me, that was a very worthwhile spend for everyone’s safety and comfort going into this project.”
In the aftermath of the “Rust” shooting in Oct. 2021, many high profile actors and directors made pledges to stop using real guns on film sets. Dwayne Johnson told Variety that all movies and television shows made under his Seven Bucks Productions banner would switch to “rubber guns,” adding: “We’re not going to worry about the dollars; we won’t worry about what it costs.”
“The Crow” opens in theaters Aug.. 23.
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