The Rock Promises “No Real Guns on Sets” Following Rust Accident

Dwayne Johnson has said that his production company is going to stop using real guns on set.

The actor talked about the accident that took place on the set of Alec Baldwin’s film, Rust, that cost cinematographer Halyna Hutchins her life when a live round was fired from a prop gun.

Johnson talked to Variety at the premiere of Red Notice and spoke about pledging to stop using real firearms on all future projects produced by his Seven Bucks Productions company.

First of all, I was heartbroken. We lost a life. My heart goes out to her family and everybody on set. I’ve known Alec, too, for a very long time. 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, or anything we do or produce—we won’t use real guns at all.

Dwayne Johnson

Red Notice, which stars Johnson alongside Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, is a cop-chase action film, and naturally will involve the usage of arms and weapons in a lot of scenes.

Johnson said that moving forward, his company will be switching to rubber guns without worrying about the cost of fixing the tiny details in post with CGI.

We’re going to switch over to rubber guns, and we’re going to take care of it in post. We’re not going to worry about the dollars; we won’t worry about what it costs. I love the movie business. There are safety protocols and measures that we have always taken in the movie business, and we take very seriously, and these sets are safe sets, and we’re proud of that… Any movie we do that Seven Bucks does with any studio, the rule is we’re not going to use real guns. That’s it.

Dwayne Johnson

Johnson co-founded Seven Bucks Productions with his longtime business partner Dany Garcia. The studio has been behind some of the most entertaining recent hits like Jumanji, Jungle Cruise, Hobbs and Shaw, Baywatch, and DC’s upcoming Black Adam. Garcia, who was also present at the premiere, added,

With any movie we do, safety is always paramount for us, and obviously, we’ve made a lot of movies that feature firearms. There are stringent protocols in how we approach those things, and it was heartbreaking to see what happened on that set. And also, to hear about it, you could hear the breakdowns in protocol that would have typically prevented that.

I think the rest of the industry has felt the ripples. I know, for us, going forward, we’re never going to deal with live guns again on-set at all, even for blanks—it’s just not necessary. Forever, moving forward, we’re going to use rubber guns because it’s just not necessary.

Dany Garcia

From Brandon Lee to Jon-Erik Hexum to Halyna Hutchins, prop gun-related accidents have happened one too many times.

Johnson is one of the first big names in Hollywood to discuss firearm safety publicly. It’s an important discussion that needs to be taken seriously to avoid such unfortunate accidents in the future.