Dwayne Johnson says he will no longer use real guns on set after Rust tragedy

By now, we’re all very familiar with the accident on the set of Rust that led to the tragic death of Halyna Hutchins. The investigation is still underway, but we’ve already seen several productions say that they will stop using real firearms on set. You can count Dwayne Johnson among them as he told Variety that his production company will no longer use real guns on any of their projects.

“First of all, I was heartbroken,” Dwayne Johnson said of Hutchins’ death. “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.” From now on, Dwayne Johnson said that any project falling under the Seven Bucks Production banner will only use rubber guns.

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. 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,” Johnson continued. “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. But accidents do happen. And when something like this happens of this magnitude, [that is] this heartbreaking, I think the most prudent thing and the smartest thing to do is just pause for a second and really re-examine how you’re going to move forward and how we’re going to work together.” We’ll likely see other studios and production companies make similar promises in the wake of Halyna Hutchins’ death. Action-packed films full of gunfire aren’t going to go away anytime soon, so it’s good to see people taking steps to make sure that the tragedy like the one that happened on Rust, however rare, doesn’t happen again.

Dwayne Johnson will next be seen in Red Notice alongside Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, which will hit Netflix on November 12th. You can check out a review from our own Chris Bumbray right here.