How did Brandon Lee die? The story of the tragic death of the actor from The Crow on set

Audiences around the world are preparing to see one of the most talked-about, yet controversial, remakes of the year when the film adaptation of The Crow hits theaters in 2024.

The Crow, a dark comic book from 1989, first hit theaters in 1994. It stars Brandon Lee as the titular gothic superhero, a rock musician also known as Eric Draven, who rises from the dead to take revenge on the gang that murdered him and his fiancée.

This time, Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs are in the lead roles, and Rupert Sanders of “Snow White and the Huntsman” takes the director’s chair, taking the place of Alex Proyas.

When the original film came out 30 years ago, it received positive reviews and gained a passionate cult following over the years.

However, the film was also marred by the tragic death of its 28-year-old star in a bizarre accident on the set.

Lee, the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, had followed in the footsteps of his famous father – who died when he was eight – by training in martial arts and studying acting.

He appeared in the films “Legacy of Rage,” “Laser Mission,” and the buddy cop film “Showdown in Little Tokyo” with Dolph Lundgren.

The rising star was then cast in the role of Eric in the gothic fantasy film The Crow, which was to be his breakthrough, and was happily engaged to his girlfriend Eliza Hutton.

Then, in March 1993, Lee had almost finished all of the scenes for the film and was shooting a scene in which he is shot by thugs after entering an apartment.

Funboy, played by actor Michael Massee, was about to shoot Lee with a Smith & Wesson Model 629 .44 Magnum revolver from a distance of 12 to 15 feet when he walked in.

In an earlier scene, the same prop weapon was fitted with blank cartridges, which look more realistic than blanks in the film.

While commercially available blank cartridges are filled with bullets but without powder and primers (which initiate the combustion of the propellant), the propeller crew made their own cartridges, removing the powder but unknowingly leaving the live primer in the cartridge.

At some point the revolver was fired and the bullet was driven into the barrel, where the primer became lodged.

In Lee's scene, the blank cartridges were replaced with blanks, which do not contain bullets but do contain powder and primers.

But when Massee fired the gun, the bullet lodged in the barrel fired with almost the same force as if the gun had been loaded with live ammunition.

The bullet hit Lee in the abdomen and the actor fell backwards instead of forwards as planned in the scene.

The crew initially believed he was still acting, but when it turned out that this was not the case, the actor was taken to New Hanover Regional Medical Center, where he underwent a six-hour surgery to save his life.

However, it was too late.

Lee was pronounced dead on March 31, 1993, at the age of 28; the shooting was ruled an accident due to negligence.

Massee, who died in 2016 at the age of 64, took a break from acting and never watched the posthumously released film “The Crow” because he was traumatized by the tragedy.

In an interview with Extra 15 years later, he said, “I just took a year off and went back to New York and did nothing. I didn't work. What happened to Brandon was a tragic accident… I don't think you ever get over something like that.”

After Lee's death, regulations regarding prop weapons on film sets were tightened. They had already been introduced nine years earlier after the death of actor Jon-Erik Hexum.

During a break from filming the CBS series “Cover Up,” Hexum was playing around with a firearm, not realizing that there was a blank cartridge left in the prop gun, and accidentally shot himself.

Six days later, the 26-year-old succumbed to his injuries.

Tragically, in 2021, 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed in an accident on the set of Rust when star and producer Alec Baldwin was filming a scene that required a prop gun and fired the weapon.

Baldwin pointed a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when a shot went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.

The star insisted that he cocked the hammer – but not the trigger – and the gun went off, and pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

In July, a judge dismissed the case at the request of his lawyers, who said evidence had been withheld.

The Crow director Sanders has since confirmed that, given the tragedies surrounding Lee and Hutchins – filming took place just months after their deaths in 2022 – real weapons were banned on set.

He is aware of the countless dangers that exist when working on a film set and stressed that “safety is the top priority.”

“On 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 the same guidelines as the military when it comes to handling weapons, but I didn't even want to risk The,” he told Variety.

“So I said categorically, 'We will not have any fireable weapons on set,' meaning we did not have a single weapon that could ever have had a live round or a blank cartridge near it, so no projectile could penetrate.”

Instead, The Crow used “rubber or metal lures that worked but had no ignition mechanism.”

The Crow (2024) hits theaters on Friday, August 23rd.

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