Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson Says No More Real Guns On His Sets In Wake Of 'Rust' Shooting
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – In response to the fatal shooting of a cinematographer last month on a movie set in New Mexico, superstar actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Wednesday pledged that his production company will immediately halt the use of real guns on all its films and television shows.
The 49-year-old Johnson made the pledge Wednesday at the downtown Los Angeles premiere of his new movie "Red Notice."
"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, anything we do or produce, we won't use real guns at all, we're gonna switch over to rubber guns, and we're gonna take care of it in post, we're not gonna worry about the dollars, we won't worry about what it costs," Johnson told Variety.
RELATED: 'Rust' Assistant Director Makes First Statement Since Shooting Death Of Halyna Hutchins
On the afternoon of Oct. 21 on the set of the Western "Rust" just outside Santa Fe, a single live round from a Pietta Colt .45 revolver fired by actor Alec Baldwin struck and killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and wounded the film's director, 48-year-old Joel Souza.
The 63-year-old Baldwin was inside a church building, sitting on a wooden pew, rehearsing unholstering his prop gun and pointing it at the camera when he fired it, according to a search warrant filed by Santa Fe County Sheriff's investigators. Hutchins was hit in the chest and Souza in the shoulder.
The firearm, which authorities confirmed was loaded with a live round, was "handled and/or inspected" by the film's armor, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, and assistant director Dave Halls, prior to it being fired by Baldwin, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said last week.
The gun was purportedly only supposed to be loaded with dummy rounds. According to the search warrant filed by sheriff's investigators, Halls had handed Baldwin the prop gun and yelled that it was a "cold gun," meaning it was not loaded with live ammunition.
A total of about 500 rounds of ammunition were seized by investigators from the "Rust" movie set following the shooting. They included blanks, dummy rounds and what investigators suspect are other live rounds.
"I can tell you though, what we should do in a scenario like this is learn from it, and as we move forward, that there are new protocols and new measures that we should take, especially in the wake of what just happened," Johnson said Wednesday.
A petition to ban real firearms from film and television sets has already garnered over 108,000 signatures.
