The last gun related death on set in Hollywood was the 90s with Brandon Lee.
When "The Crow" was adapted to a TV series a few years later, people wondered if the whole property was cursed. There was an episode in which a boat on a beach was supposed to blow up. A piece of debris struck one of the show's crew, killing him.
Dunno if anyone here besides me ever watched the old Voyagers! TV show. Jon-Erik Hexum co-starred in that, and awhile later he was in another TV show, there was a gun on-set...:
Wikipedia said:
On October 12, 1984, the cast and crew of
Cover Up were filming the seventh episode of the series, "Golden Opportunity", on Stage 18 of the
20th Century Fox lot. One of the scenes filmed that day called for Hexum's character to load cartridges into a
.44 Magnum handgun, so he was provided with a functional gun and
blanks. When the scene did not play as the director wanted it to in the
master shot, there was a delay in filming. Hexum became restless and impatient during the delay and began playing around to lighten the mood. He had unloaded all but one (blank) round, spun it, and—simulating
Russian roulette—he put the
revolver to his right
temple and pulled the trigger, unaware of the danger.
[12]
The explosive effect of the
muzzle blast caused enough
blunt force trauma to
fracture a
quarter-sized piece of his skull and propel this into his brain, causing massive
hemorrhaging.
[6][13]
Hexum was rushed to Beverly Hills Medical Center, where he underwent five hours of surgery to repair his wounds.
[1][13] On October 18, aged 26, six days after the accident, Hexum was declared
brain dead.
en.wikipedia.org
Back in my musical theatre days I worked on a few shows that included guns. I was on the props crew, and made it clear that I wanted NOTHING to do with any gun that was meant to shoot anything. I didn't have the training, and didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt because I didn't know what I was doing. So someone else had charge of the guns in
Kiss Me, Kate (two gangsters had to wave guns around and one of them had to shoot one), we used obvious fakes in
Jesus Christ Superstar (made of wood), I don't remember if any were present on the
Sound of Music set (would have been more of a costume piece than a prop), and the big one to be wary of was
West Side Story. Someone else took charge of both the guns and knives in that show; I flatly refused to even touch them. The props list called for switchblades, which can't legally be purchased in Canada, so the ones our production used were flanged-up fakes. Even so, I didn't want anything to do with them.
The only prop gun I ever did handle was for
Peter Pan. There was nothing in it, and the actor using it was supposed to take it out (he was a pirate), wave it a little, and put it away. It was not meant to be used as an actual weapon. So that was doable. It still scared the (censored) out of me the night I took off to watch the show from the audience. The actor dropped the gun and it fell into the orchestra pit. Captain Hook's actor quickly improvised a line: "Good thing you dropped that gun - one shot and those Indians would've been onto us!" The audience laughed; some thought it was how the scene should go, others knew it was an accident. I just sat there and facepalmed, hoping the gun hadn't been damaged.
I went backstage at intermission, to find that someone in the orchestra had turned it in, and the actor must have apologized for 5 minutes nonstop. There was a little damage - something came loose. I did a quick fix with some tape that held for the rest of that night's performance and we did a better fix the following day for the rest of the run.
Safety is also why I refused to go along with shooting arrows across the stage (easy to hurt someone in the wings, or even the audience if the shooter had spectacularly bad aim). I told the director it would be safer to change the dialogue to eliminate the need for arrows. She wasn't happy, but complied.
It was a huge relief when the fire department told me "NO!" when I called to ask about fireworks on stage (there's a bomb scene in Peter Pan). They were surprised when I said, "Thank you, that's such a relief!" I could go tell the director that the fire department had vetoed her idea as a fire hazard. I flanged up a fake with styrofoam, paint, and a string painted to look like a lit fuse. The audience was willing to suspend their disbelief and the scene worked fine.
Working with that director was a challenge, since she wanted so many flashy, ambitious things and had no clue about actual backstage logistics or safety. She's the one who wanted the live monkey and goldfish in
Gypsy... but that's another story.
Thank goodness
Camelot only had swords and daggers to worry about. Those were much easier to deal with!
As for my take on the situation with this movie, whatever happens on a set, no matter if it's a TV show, movie, or stage production, it's ultimately the producer's responsibility. Even if they don't have much or even any involvement with whatever something might be, if something goes wrong and someone is injured (or worse), the producer must never be able to shrug off responsibility.
Especially if weapons are involved.
