The Crow remake made one major change after original’s infamous death

Following the infamous death of Brandon Lee during the production of The Crow in 1993, the 2024 remake went to great lengths to ensure history wouldn’t repeat itself.

In March 1993, Brandon Lee was filming a scene for the 1994 version of The Crow. His character, Eric, was going to be shot after a vicious attack. The stunt involved a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 629 revolver, and Lee was fatally shot after the gun wasn’t sufficiently checked for obstructions.

It became known as one of the most tragic on-set accidents ever to occur. In 2021, another notorious on-set shooting would occur on the set of Rust, in which a prop gun was discharged that mistakenly contained real rounds, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Both the original tragedy of The Crow and the 2021 incident on the Rust set influenced the production of the 2024 Crow remake greatly. Namely, director Rupert Sanders insisted that no real guns would be present on set at any time.

“Safety is a number one priority,” he said [via Variety]. “Film sets are very dangerous. There are fast moving cars with cranes stuck on the top. There are stunt guys falling on high wires down steps.

“Even just walking around a set at night with rain machines and lights – you’re working in an industrial environment. So it’s dangerous. You have to be safe.

“The first day I met with the special effects department and the armorer, who was great, in Prague. They were very safety-conscious. They follow all the same guidelines as the military when dealing with weapons, but I didn’t even want to risk that.”

The Crow centers around Eric (Bill Skarsgård), who becomes trapped in the space between life and death after his girlfriend Shelly (FKA Twigs) is brutally murdered. He goes on a rampage of vengeance, making the new movie a high-stakes action flick with plenty of violence.

To ensure weapons were still included, Sanders resorted to using Airsoft guns in place of real ones.

“I said, categorically, ‘We will have no firing weapons on set,’ which means we didn’t have one gun that could have had a live round or a blank round anywhere near it ever, so that no projectile could go in,” he said.

“They’re all Airsoft guns, and some of them are just rubber or metal decoys that are functional but have no firing mechanism.”

According to Sanders, using an Airsoft gun meant “a fair bit of money” was needed for the special effects budget in order to make the firing of the weapons appear real on-screen. But he maintained it “was a very worthwhile spend for everyone’s safety and comfort going into this project.”

The Crow releases on August 23, 2024. In the meantime, take a look at all the best movies of 2024 so far, and find out what the best action movies of all time are.