New Mexico Movie & TV Industry Pages at Magic Lantern Video & Book Store

2021 Friday Oct 21: Early in the day, six union-member workers on the crew walked off the New Mexico set of "Rust" over safety issues; there had been two misfires on the prop gun on Saturday and one the previous week. "There was a serious lack of safety meetings on this set."

2021 Friday Oct 21: An assistant director handed actor-producer Alec Baldwin a Colt .45 revolver 'prop' gun, and told him that it was 'cold', meaning that it was understood to be loaded with blanks and not live rounds. During rehearsal of the next scene, Actor Baldwin accidentally fired the prop gun and fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and seriously injured director Joel Souza.

2021 Oct 27: Dave Halls - assistant director on the Alec Baldwin movie "Rust" - acknowledged that he failed to thoroughly check the gun that was handed to actor Alec Baldwin before the fatal on-set shooting; Hall told investigators that armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed opened the gun for him to inspect before handing it to Baldwin, and Halls said that "he should have checked all of" the rounds in the gun, "but didn't, and couldn't recall if she spun the drum". Halls said that he only remembered seeing three rounds in the gun; after the shooting, he says he brought the gun to Reed and saw "at least four dummy casings with the holes on the side, and one without the hole".

2021 Wed Dec 1: A.B.C. News released a confusing teaser for an interview with George Stephanopoulos, with actor-producer Alec Baldwin saying that he "didn’t pull the trigger" of the gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza on the set of "Rust". In the full interview, Baldwin said that he pointed the gun to help Hutchins set up her shot, under her direction. "The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger . . . I cock the gun. I go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?’ . . . And then I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off. I let go of the hammer of the gun, the gun goes off."
In the very old-style Colt .45 revolver that Baldwin used, the hammer needs to be manually cocked: the person holding the gun cocks the hammer, and then pulls the trigger to release it, causing the bullet to fire. One can also manually pull back and release the hammer, causing the bullet to fire.

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2022 Feb 15: A lawyer for the family of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins filed a wrongful death lawsuit against actor Alec Baldwin and others over Hutchins' death on the New Mexico set of the film "Rust" the prior October. Baldwin was rehearsing a scene when the prop gun that he was holding discharged with a live round that hit Hutchins, fatally wounding her; director Joel Souza was injured but recovered. Attorneys for Hutchins' family accused Baldwin and others responsible for safety on the set of disregarding industry standards to cut costs, leading to the tragedy.

2022 Wed April 20: New Mexico's Occupational Health & Safety Bureau fined film company Rust Movie Productions nearly $136,793 for firearms safety failures and the fatal on-set shooting. The state workplace regulator ordered the maximum possible fine, citing safety failures in clear violation of industry protocols: production managers didn't address complaints from crew members or sufficiently tighten safety procedures after two misfires on set before the deadly October accident, failing to act despite 'a set of obvious hazards to employees'; the fine was later reduced to $100,000 on appeal.

2022 Oct 4: The producers of the movie "Rust" and star Alec Baldwin have reached a settlement with the estate of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed when a gun that Baldwin was holding accidentally discharged with live ammunition. Matthew Hutchins, Halyna Hutchins’ husband said, “We have reached a settlement, subject to court approval, for our wrongful death case against the producers of "Rust", including Alec Baldwin and Rust Movie Productions, LLC. As part of that settlement, our case will be dismissed. The filming of "Rust", which I will now executive produce, will resume with all the original principal players on board in January 2023. I have no interest in engaging in recriminations or attribution of blame (to the producers or to Mr. Baldwin). All of us believe [that] Halyna’s death was a terrible accident. I am grateful that the producers and the entertainment community have come together to pay tribute to Halyna’s final work.”

2022 October: Trade publication Variety Magazine reported that production for the film "Rust" will pick back up in January; the filmmakers will not be returning to New Mexico. Actor Alec Baldwin maintains that he didn't know the pistol had a live round in it, and he denies that he pulled the trigger.

2022 Thu Oct 27: Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office submitted its last investigative findings in the death on a New Mexico film set one year prior to prosecutors. Two binders of information were turned over to Santa Fe-based District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies’s office, without setting forth any recommendations about possible criminal charges. The Sheriff’s Office already has made public the lapel camera video of the mortally wounded Hutchins, witness interrogations, email threads, text conversations, inventories of ammunition, and hundreds of photographs.

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2023 Thu Jan 19: Santa Fe's District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies announced in a statement that charges would be filed against actor Alec Baldwin and the film's armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed by the end of the month. Each will be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. {Each charge is a fourth-degree felony, which means that conviction could bring up to 18 months behind bars and a $5,000 fine; prosecutors also tacked on a provision that could result in five years of prison time
because a gun was involved.}

Baldwin's attorney Luke Nikas did not immediately respond to a request for comment; Gutierrez-Reed's attorneys Jason Bowles
and Todd J. Bullion provided the following statement: "Hannah is, and has always been, very emotional and sad about this tragic accident. But she did not commit involuntary manslaughter. These charges are the result of a very flawed investigation and an inaccurate understanding of the full facts. We intend to bring the full truth to light and believe [that] Hannah will be
exonerated of wrongdoing by a jury."

2023 Feb 14: After 16 months delay, the production company behind the troubled western movie "Rust" said that it will resume filming this spring (in Montana); some of the original crew, including director Joel Souza, will return, and two safety officers will be added; at the same time, the company is producing a documentary on the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

2023 Feb 20: In a win for Alec Baldwin, prosecutors dropped a gun enhancement charge against the actor in the manslaughter case over the fatal shooting of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Prosecutors said that they made the change to "avoid further litigious distractions" after Baldwin’s legal team argued that the law behind the charge didn’t exist in its current form when the shooting happened. That means that Baldwin is now facing a maximum of 18 months in prison if convicted,
rather than a potential five-year penalty.

2023 March: Assistant director David Halls pleaded 'no contest' to a misdemeanor charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon and received a suspended sentence of six months in jail.

2023 late April: Prosecutors dropped charges against Alec Baldwin based on new information: that the prop gun that discharged was modified prior to delivery to the "Rust" movie set.

2023 June 2: A New Mexico judge approved terms of the settlement reached in Fall 2022 of the wrongful death civil suit filed by the Hutchins family; details are sealed because the primary beneficiary is Halyna's minor son Andros.

2023 June 22: Weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is already charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of the cinematographer on the New Mexico set of the Alec Baldwin film "Rust" is now charged with evidence tampering for allegedly passing drugs to someone else on the day of the shooting; the special prosecutors appointed in the case stated that Gutierrez-Reed “did transfer narcotics to another person with the intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution, or conviction of herself” in a Santa Fe County court filing; they gave no further details. “It is shocking that after 20 months of investigation, the special prosecutor now throws in a completely new charge against Ms. Gutierrez Reed, with no prior notice or any witness statements, lab reports, or evidence to support it," Bowles said in a statement.

2023 Oct 6: During a virtual hearing, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ordered the resistent "Rust" producer group to deliver documents - contracts, agreements, memos - requested by special prosecutor Karl T. Morrissey by October 20th.

2023 Oct 17: Special prosecutors in New Mexico are pushing for new charges against actor Alec Baldwin in the 2021 fatal shooting on the set of the Western movie "Rust". "Additional facts have come to light that we believe show Mr. Baldwin has criminal culpability," New Mexico-based prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis said. Prosecutors dropped an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April; they plan to present the new case to a grand jury within two months.

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2024 Jan 19: A grand jury indicted actor-producer Alec Baldwin on involuntary manslaughter charges for the fatal shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie "Rust" in October, 2021. Baldwin was charged in early 2023, but those charges were dropped.

2024 Feb 21: The film's armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will go on trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence.

2024 April 15: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to the maximum of 18 months in prison after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the fatal 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust".

2024 July 12: A New Mexico judge tossed the involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin stemming from the fatal 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of "Rust". The judge axed the charge mid-trial after Baldwin’s legal team claimed prosecutors buried evidence about ammunition. The case was dismissed with prejudice, which means it cannot be refiled, and the yearslong legal saga between prosecutors and Baldwin is over - a decision that brought the actor to tears in the courtroom.

2024 July 17: "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed asked for dismissal of her conviction after shocking close to the Alec Baldwin trial.

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