Superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson pledged not to use real guns on any of his future productions in response to Halyna Hutchins death on the “Rust” set.
Johnson is no stranger to wielding a firearm in his flicks, and even shot live firearms in his latest Netflix action thriller co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds.
“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,” Johnson said of the productions he stars and produces.
The Rock’s not the only one in the industry pushing for a change in how Hollywood handles guns on film sets. A group of 200 prominent cinematographers pledged to refuse to work on productions that use live weapons.
“We are Halyna Hutchins’ fellow Directors of Photographer and we are vowing to not let her death be in vain,” the group wrote in an open letter. “We vow to no longer knowingly work on projects using FUNCTIONAL FIREARMS for filming purposes. We vow to no longer put ourselves and our crew in these unnecessarily lethal situations.”
“We have safe alternatives in VFX and NON-functional FIREARMS,” the letter reads. “We won’t wait for the industry to change. We have a duty to effect change within the industry ourselves.”
The Rock echoed that using special effects in place of live firearms was a safer alternative. “We’re going to switch over to rubber guns, and we’re going to take care of it in post,” he said. We’re not going to worry about the dollars; we won’t worry about what it costs.”
“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,” Johnson concluded.
“Eternals” star Angelina Jolie, who has played plenty of gunslingers in hits like “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Wanted,” and “Tomb Raider,” said the “grief and tragedy” of the “Rust” accident is “quite overwhelming,” advocated for gun safety, but stopped short at joining her fellow A-lister in giving up the use of live weapons on set.
“I’ve always been very careful because I’ve had to work with guns a lot,” she remarked. “The way I’ve worked or checked when I’m directing, there are certain procedures. You have to take it very seriously.
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Who really cares about such pronouncements.