www.forbes.com: News of Rust Movie Productions LLC’s and Alec Baldwin’s settlement with the late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ estate broke last week, almost eight months after Attorney Brian Panish filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Defendants. In October 2021, Hutchins was shot and killed by a prop gun on the set of Rust, which will resume production at the start of 2023 with Hutchins’ widow, Matthew, now an Executive Producer.
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Ok, not sure how, but I had never heard of Hollywood being called Tinseltown until reading this article. Is that common knowledge I somehow missed? Anyway, the content of this article was interesting (though really a lot of legal cases): I had no idea wrongful death lawsuits were so common, but it does make a lot of sense. Hutchins’ death was huge news for all of us in Purnell, and the entertainment world in general. Also intriguing is that Hutchins’ widow is now an executive producer on the movie, which resumes filming next year. How do you go back to set after what happened? How does the cast, crew, etc move on, keep working? They’re all going to have to really work together and take care of themselves I would hope. Some of the other lawsuits make sense: Kobe Bryant’s death in 2020, Naya Rivera, Travis Scott being sued after Astroworld, etc. There’s a lot to unpack in these, something to do some more reading on.
This is a kind of interesting article in the ways that it examines the wrongful death lawsuits in the two selected cases. I am a bit shocked to read that Rust is returning to filming, although if it is going to happen I am glad that Halyna's widow is a part of the process so that it can pay appropriate respect to her life and work on the project. Rather than it becoming a gross misrepresentation of her work in an effort to remember her. It was interesting to me thought that this article chose to draw a connection between Halyna's death and some other wrongful deaths in the Hollywood and famous people world. The connection through the lawsuits was a particularly interesting angle in my mind. I would be interested to see how many of these horrific accidents have similar lawsuits and what the outcomes of those lawsuits are.
If I'm honest I'm not the slightest bit surprised the Rust producers decided to settle out of court regarding the wrongful death suit. I believe they made that choice to be able to expedite the process of getting back to filming so no more money would be going to waste. The topic of wrongful death law suit is definitely very interesting to me, mostly because a majority of wrongful death suits get settled out of court. I've always wondered why thats the case and what leads to this particular type of suit having so many settlements. I also find it interesting who the suits are against especially in the law suits that are listed in the article. I agree with the article where there probably will never be a decrease in wrongful death lawsuits for the sole fact that most do not go to court and the families affected can ensure they get a fair amount of compensation without having to go through the legal hassle.
It is surprising to learn about all of the different wrongful death lawsuits that have been in Tinseltown. There are so many different artists who have either helped caused tragic accidents or have been victims toa tragic accident, that it makes me wonder why no one has done anything to prevent these tragic accidents from happening. What happened with Halyna Hatchins was a true tragedy and I am surprised that the show is still on the market to be produced. I wonder if any of the safety measures for the show have changed, or if there was anything done in the industry to prevent something like this from happening again. Same with the Travis Scott concert, there were obvious safety measures that could have been put in place to prevent so many different people from being killed. When I first heard of the accident I was shocked that the industry in general would allow an accident like this to happen. I am an avid concert goer and I often feel safe at the venues, but with these tragic accidents becoming more common and more prevalent in our society, I wonder and worry about not just my safety but the safety of others around me at concerts. I am hopeful the industry standards will change so that Wrongful Death lawsuits become less common.
It always shocks me how long it takes major cases like the Rust set shooting wrongful death suit to go through the full process of law. This really goes for almost any law process. Of course, the law is complicated, but sometimes cases really seem open and shut and still take ages to go through the full process of law. That doesn’t even pertain strictly to the Rust case – the Rust case seems to be a lot more vague with a lot going on. I am honestly very shocked that Rust will continue production after the tragedy that occurred on set last year. It is comforting to know that this is being done with the full support of Halyna’s widow, with him even being an executive producer now. Some of the other cases mentioned in this article are a little bit more odd to me. The Naya Rivera case is an example of one with both (to me, at least) sensical and nonsensical elements. I can understand the part of the case that the rented pontoon was not supplied with adequate safety equipment. On the other hand, the part about the lake having varying depth, and such details as that seem a lot more like common sense to me. However, common sense will not stand up to a court of law. And don’t get me wrong – all of the mentioned cases are true tragedies. I just don’t understand how the process of law works sometimes.
It's a shame that this happened and it is even further a shame that there seems to be so little we have actually determined about the circumstances leading up to Halyna Hutchin's death.
But I guess the thing we need to be asking now is, even if we don't know exactly how this happened, is how do we prevent something like this happening in the future? I don't think firearms used as props are going to be going anywhere anytime soon, even if we have the tech to nullify the need. So moving forward, we as an industry need to be more mindful to respect the inherent hazardous conditions that we encounter in our work. We have a responsibility to ourselves and each other to be aware of how things can go wrong so that we can develop plans that will keep us all safe. The bottom line is that there are procedures that probably weren't followed, and corners that were probably cut, and a certain amount of neglect that had to happen to get the end result of a crew member dying. And it isn't okay.
It's kind of ridiculous just how many high-profile events/names are involved in and/or the victims of accidents. Obviously, organizers are not psychic; they can't realistically imagine or know what will happen in the future, so it's impossible to plan for everything. However, organizers in this position, especially when involved with such high-profile people and events, should have an even greater responsibility to ensure that people remain safe and secure. I doubt that many of these incidents described in this article came from a place of malice, but that doesn't make the families of those who lost their lives feel any better. And those families are owed something because of that oversight. Obviously, it won't bring back their loved ones, but at that point, these suits are really the only thing people can do, and the risk of losing money is really the only real threat any of these companies will genuinely listen to and respond to.
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