MOVIE NEWS – Nearly a year and a half after the gun in his hand went off and mortally wounded the film’s cinematographer, Alec Baldwin has decided to stop shooting the western.

 

 

Alec Baldwin has returned to the set of Rust to finish the film. This came after the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office dropped the manslaughter charges against him, at least for now. The charges stem from the 2021 incident that claimed the life of cameraman Halyna Hutchins. Filming of the low-budget western resumed last week at the Yellowstone Film Ranch in Montana.

In an Instagram post on Monday, Baldwin confirmed he was on the set. “Now outside of Bozeman to complete RUST,” he wrote. “Montana is stunning”.

According to Melina Spadone, a lawyer for Rust Movie Productions, filming is expected to be completed by the end of May. Filming was suspended in October 2021 after a revolver in Baldwin’s hand went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Hutchins’ widow, Matthew Hutchins, is executive producing the film under an agreement with the production to settle a wrongful death lawsuit and make a documentary about the cameraman’s life and work.

“The production will continue to employ union crew members and will exclude the use of work guns and ammunition of any kind,” Spadone said in the statement. “Live ammunition is – and has always been – prohibited on the set”.

Before allowing its members to work on the production, the Directors Guild of America said in a statement that the group “insisted on extensive additional safety requirements.” The guild stressed that “we only allowed our members to work on the project if these conditions were met.”

SAG-AFTRA, which said in a statement that it had “provisionally granted security clearance to Rust”, also highlighted the additional security requirements on the shoot. For example, that the production does not contain live ammunition or weapons capable of firing any ammunition. Also, that the union’s regional representatives regularly visit the production.

A union spokesperson added that “two highly respected security veterans, one of whom is a long-time stunt coordinator, will oversee all aspects of security as security supervisors and will be on-site at all times and available to us if needed”.

Alec Baldwin arrived in Montana last week to continue filming. This coincided with prosecutors formally dropping the involuntary manslaughter charges against him on Friday. In a court filing, they said they were withdrawing the charges “because new facts have come to light that requires further investigation and forensic analysis”. In a statement, they clarified that the charges could be refiled.

Source: Instagram