What Happened To Brandon Lee In The Crow?

Brandon Lee's passing was an undeniable shock and a tragedy that haunts the afterlife of the first film version of "The Crow." While his death has been steeped in myth and rumor in the two decades since it happened, it was an accident — one that ultimately changed many lives and even the way the 2024 remake handled gun safety.

Lee's death occurred on March 31, 1993. He had been filming Eric Draven's death scene. The moment required Eric Massee (who played Funboy, one of Top Dollar's henchmen) to shoot Lee with blanks. Neither actor knew that the real revolver given to Massee still had an improperly made dummy bullet jammed in its barrel. While there was no gunpowder in the fake bullets, no one had taken out their primers, causing it to lodge itself in the barrel. When the gun was loaded with a fresh blank round, no one checked to make sure it was clear. After Massee pulled the trigger, the blank propelled the dummy bullet forward, and it emerged with all of the force an actual bullet would have. Lee was struck in the abdomen and died of blood loss, heart failure, and internal injuries after six hours of emergency surgery at a nearby hospital.

The actor's death was ruled an act of negligence, and the film completed shooting without Lee. In August 1993, Linda Lee Cadwell, Brandon's mother, filed suit against the filmmakers. It was settled that October under undisclosed terms. The accident also had a definite impact on the life of the regretful Massee. Walking in the wake of Lee's tragic death, the producers of 2024's "The Crow" made an important change to the way they handled their weaponry.

Fully aware of the danger of having live rounds on the set thanks to Brandon Lee's accident — and the more recent accidental shooting on the set of "Rust" that claimed Halyna Hutchins' life in 2021 — 2024's "The Crow" eschewed having live rounds and real guns. Director Rupert Sanders told Variety that film sets are already dangerous enough without including weapons. "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," he said. 

Sanders banned not only real guns from his set, but any firing weapon into which a projectile could be loaded. Every weapon used on-screen in the movie is a fake one. "They're all Airsoft guns, and some of them are just rubber or metal decoys that are functional but have no firing mechanism," he explained. He said the added security of such on-set safety measures were worthwhile, even if it meant having to add a flash and smoke effect afterward, which tacked on more dollars to the budget. Audiences will find out soon enough if it makes that cash back when the-somewhat-already-maligned remake of "The Crow" comes to theaters on August 23.