Film productions have many regulations regarding the safety of the crew. But even though it sounds ridiculous, fatal accidents can happen on big-budget movie sets too.
In this post, we offer you some of the worst mistakes of people who lost their lives during movie sets.
5 – The Crow
The movie from the hands of the director Alex Proyas, the adaption of James O’Barr’s, The Crow, shows the story of a man who rises from the grave to take revenge.
One year after he dies, the musician Eric Daven takes another life powered by an eerie crow. He uses his capability to take revenge on the ones who killed him.
This role was supposed to have skyrocketed the actor Brandon Lee to success. But, instead, a series of incidents and a slug on the wrong place took the life of the movie star.
For the scene where the character was supposed to use a gun with fake bullets, the crew used real ones.
Unfortunately, they forgot the primer attached, so when the character pulled the trigger, the gun’s firing pin shot the bullet slug into the gun’s barrel.
So when villains had to shoot blanks at Lee, the slug was already stuck in the barrel. The bullet shot out and went straight into Lee’s stomach, hitting his spine.
He was taken to the hospital, but it was too late, and Bruce Lee’s son lost his life on the set of the film.
4 – Twilight Zone: The Movie
Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone is considered as one of the greatest science fiction movie sets in history. This movie was John Landis and Steven Spielberg’s dedication to the groundbreaking show.
Namely, Spielberg and Landis adapted the best three episodes of the series, along creating one original story. The starring actor Vic Morrow’s role was a racist to spend a night in the shoes of some of the guys he hated.
In the scene when he was attacked in Vietnam by American soldiers, an unknown error caused the helicopter to crash down.
The helicopter’s main rotor killed Morrow, along with child actors My-ca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen.
John Landis and four others later went to court, charged with two counts of unintentional manslaughter.
After their public trial where the court was shown footage of the accident, the jury decided that Landis did not anticipate the dangerous scene and all prisoners were found not guilty.
3 – Top Gun
Top Gun is a famous action-romantic movie that tells the story of a seductive pilot. It was one of the most famous movie sets in the ’80s, starring Tom Cruz.
However, in this film there wasn’t a possible solution to fake the shots of fighter jets taking off, flying next to each other and doing other stunts, without using miniatures. For this performance, the crew hired pilots with skills.
But, although the pilots had professional trainees and there were many care measures taken to keep them safe, the flying itself has internal threats that the performers experienced with every day.
For instance, the pilot Art Scholl, during his flat spin performance, was unable to recover from his action and ended up crashing his jet.
The crew dedicated the movie in his honor.
2 – Jumper
The 2008 movie Jumper tells the story of a man with incredible power to teleport and his experiences running away from religious fanatics who think his power is evil.
Directed by Doug Liman, the movie involves many action sequences and stunts. Interestingly, the fatal accident happened in one of the safest activities: striking the set.
Set dresser David Ritchie was helping to level a fake wall of sand and rock when a large part dropped straight on him. He died instantly, while another crew member was injured.
1 – The Return of the Musketeers
1989’s The Return of the Musketeers was an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s sequel Twenty Years After. It contained many swashbuckling action standards, including swordplay, gunfire, and horseback riding.
During a series of horseback riding, the actor Roy Kinnear, fell while filming the scene.
The 54-year-old actor sustained a broken pelvis and died in a Spanish hospital due to complications the next day. The film’s director Richard Lester ended up very stressed by the disaster.
He decided he was never going to make another film again and that’s what really happened.
