I've heard from others that there actually are industry standards for gun safety, for what internet blather is worth, and there may be crew-union standards for safety, or rules put in place by the insurance companies that provide accident/disaster coverage for the film companies. State and federal laws will determine what criminal penalties will be levied, but there are various other bodies that Baldwin & Co. have to worry about, because it doesn't seem like they followed anyone's idea of reasonable safety precautions.
Basically, no matter how you look at it, Baldwin is fucked, and so is anyone else who participated in the chain of mistakes that led to the disaster. And so is the film production company that was funding this, because I believe the people who've said that because things were so badly run that the insurance company is going to refuse to pay for anything, so the film production company is not only going to lose whatever money they've invested in the movie, they're going to have to pay for any damages and not pass the expense onto the insurance.
Criminal penalties and neverending lawsuits aside, this is going to mean the end of a lot of careers. Baldwin may be able to find enough work as an actor to pay his lawyers, but nobody's going to let him produce another film.
reply
share
[deleted]
3 years ago
Unfortunately the production company for most movies is little more than a shell company, just in case something happens so the production company can go bankrupt and the asshats running it can avoid being caught in the monetary quicksand of lawsuits.
So you really will expect that lots of asshats that setup the production company will avoid being fucked in court with the exception of the ones that were also part of the actual management team. I would be shocked if any of the asshats that were behind making the movie lose any more money than they have actually sunk into the company with the exception of the ones like Baldwin that will be nailed for their personal responsibility in the mess. Baldwin will most likely be filing for personal bankruptcy before things get done.
reply
share
Otter (24464)
3 years ago
Good point, I know little about the companies that produce low-budget movies, you're probably right that they're on the fly-by-night side of things. And they're about to... well, fly by night!
reply
share
[deleted]
3 years ago
Large companies are more likely to do it this way than low budget ones Look at the beginning of the movies where it start listing the production companies involved. You'll usually see some odd named ones pop up, while most will be operating companies of a major studio, a major studio will have some of them and do that to protect themselves from financial bombshells if something goes wrong and the production company gets sued. Much better to have an operating company that you only keep enough money in to remain solvent go bankrupt than for someone to sue Sony Pictures. Don't Breathe 2 had 5 different production companies 2 of which were actually just operating companies of Sony. In the case of Rust they have 7 different operating companies making the movie, one of which was called Rust Productions LLC which was likely the production company that would legally have the liability for things that went wrong in filming. Now because they were trying to do everything on the cheap it is possible that they skipped some of the legal requirements such as holding actual board meeting and other little things to allow the LLC to legitimately be a legal firewall to protect the people making the money. Sometimes even large companies will get sloppy and ignore all the minutiae the law requires and if that happens the people that created the company don't get the legal protection they wanted and can be liable as if they were simply partners in a failed business. The lawyers will be digging deep to prove they can go after anyone with deep pockets that was involved in the movie even if they were doing it through a production company. Even if the people involved manage to avoid paying the money that will be sought themselves it could still end up costing them hundreds of thousands in legal bills by the time the dust settles.
reply
share
Otter (24464)
3 years ago
You're making it sound like the only deep pockets associated with the production were Baldwin's.
And I don't know how deep his pockets are, with the army of small children he's got to support, and another army of lawyers...
reply
share
[deleted]
3 years ago
Oh I think there were maybe 2 or 3 with deep pockets, but when you look at the list of producers it was a pretty long list but had people that were normally in the makeup or other crew jobs of a movie so it would seem that a lot of the producer were given that role instead of a normal salary. Then if you look at the list of production companies you have a lot that aren't mainstream. This means they were likely created by a group of dentists, doctors or other people with some free cash that wanted to be in the movie business. Remember this film only had a 7 million dollar budget so to have a large number of production companies it implies that none of them were willing to put in that much money. I wouldn't be surprised if each production company had only put up 1 million each which. The deepest pockets on the list of producers would appear to be a former agent that's been in the business for about 20 years so being an agent for named talent for many years he is probably the one with the deepest pockets but also probably smart enough to make sure he is protected from any issues with the production.
reply
share