Reading this just reminds me again, how avoidable the tragedy surrounding Brandon Lee could've and should've been:
https://www.quora.com/Did-a-movie-destroy-an-actors-life/answer/Jon-Mixon-1
The film was part of Wilmington, North Carolina’s bid to become a low-cost Southern Hollywood. They cut costs throughout the project, even using an armorer who was barely competent and doing without an onsite team of paramedics, hoping instead to avoid injuries. While that would normally not come back to haunt people, on the night of March 1993 things went downhill fast.
A scene was being filmed where Lee’s character was suppose walk in on criminals assaulting his girlfriend and then being shot and killed by one. Not only was the scene poorly structured (It should have been three to four edits where the firearm would be shot using blanks but not while Lee was in front of the barrel) the weapon itself had misfired during an earlier usage and a bullet cap (used to show that a revolver is loaded when looked at when the scene is filmed looking down the barrel) was stuck in the barrel. The detonation of the blank round dislodged the bullet cap and it struck Lee in the abdomen.
Because there weren’t paramedics on site valuable time was wasted when untrained people were checking Lee and were unable to determine what had happened. Lee was rushed to a hospital and although he was worked for hours, he died from blood loss and shock. The production shut down for an extended period of time; but the decision was made to finish the film using a double and CGI for the first time to replace a missing character. The Lee family sued and was awarded an undisclosed settlement.
The film was a disaster from the beginning as again, it was unsafe, they were trying to save money, and the scene where Lee died was so meaningless that they could have used a double for everything but closeups.
reply
share