In the reboot of “The Crow” weapons were banned after Brandon Lee’s death

Rupert Sanders' The Crow is a new take on the dark 1989 comic, but there is one element of the franchise's history that the director definitely did not want to repeat.

During production of the 1994 film adaptation of The Crow, star Brandon Lee was accidentally shot on set when the film's prop department had an accident. That tragedy repeated itself decades later on the set of Rust in October 2021, when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot because real bullets were found in a prop gun held by Alec Baldwin.

Given that Sanders was shooting his film in 2022, both incidents reinforced the director's commitment to making the set as safe as possible.

“Safety is the number one priority,” he said. “Film sets are very dangerous. There are cars driving fast with cranes on the roof. There are stuntmen on high wires falling down stairs. Even walking around the set at night with rain machines and spotlights – you're working in an industrial environment. So it's dangerous. You have to be safe. On the first day in Prague I met with the special effects department and the armorer, who was great. They were very safety conscious. They follow the same guidelines as the military when handling weapons, but I didn't even want to take the risk. The.”

“So I said categorically, 'We're not going to have any fireable weapons on set,' meaning we didn't have a single weapon that had a live round or blank anywhere near it, so no projectile could penetrate,” he continued. “They're all airsoft guns, and some of them are just rubber or metal dummies that work but don't have any firing mechanism.”

In the “The Crow” reboot, “It” and “John Wick 4” actor Bill Skarsgård plays Eric Draven, who is killed along with his girlfriend Shelly (FKA Twigs). In a state of limbo between life and death, Eric makes it his mission to avenge their murders. In his interview with diversitySanders advocated the use of airsoft guns on set instead of real firearms.

“The beauty of airsoft is that the slide on a Glock still moves back, but then you have to add the cartridge case,” said the filmmaker. “You have to add muzzle flash and smoke, but that was the price you had to pay. It ate up quite a bit of my very limited visual effects budget, but I think it was worth it. The visual effects in this film were mostly shot in-camera. We shot mostly on location and extended the set, so you have to weigh up what you're going to spend the money on if you don't have a huge visual effects budget. But for me, that was a very worthwhile expense for the safety and comfort of everyone who went into this project.”

After the shooting in “Rust” in October 2021, many well-known actors and directors have promised not to use real weapons on film sets anymore. Dwayne Johnson said diversity that all films and television shows produced under his Seven Bucks Productions brand would switch to “rubber guns,” adding: “We're not worried about the money; we're not worried about what it costs.”

“The Crow” will be in theaters on August 23rd.