THE CROW: New book exposes the series of missteps that led to Brandon Lee’s shocking and tragic death

In 1993, Brandon Lee he was tragically killed while filming a scene for the director Alex Proyas’ The Raven. Some details of how this happened were already publicly known, but a new memoir has outlined the series of mistakes made that led to the shocking incident. There is new information here that was discovered by the director Dwight H. Smallwho wrote the book, which is titled Still Moving: Inside Hollywood’s Dream Factory.

One of the chapters in that book focuses on what happened the day Lee died and it’s pretty incredible all the things and oversights that had to happen for this terrible accident to happen. Thanks to JoBlo, we have chapter excerpts to share with you, and the details will make you shake your head in disbelief.

The book says:

“The tragedy was so disturbing with the death of his father, also at such a young age. I went to the memorial service where Melissa Etheridge sang “Ain’t It Heavy.” On top of everything else, Brandon was engaged. …All these years later, these are the “facts” I have managed to gather, although I am not sure I have the full story.

“The night before the accident, the second unit was doing some filming on a different set than the main unit. There was a large shot (close-up) looking down the barrel of a gun. Film crews were concerned that the barrel might appear hollow, so a “slug” or “dummy bullet” of some kind was inserted into the barrel to prevent light from passing through. Once the second unit was completed, the gun was put away for the night. Nobody remembered to remove the bullet. When the first unit needed the weapon the next day, it was removed and a blank charge was inserted for set-up. None of the crew of the first unit knew that the shell had been placed there the night before and no one had checked. When the actor pointed the gun at Brandon, the bullet went off and the projectile went off. The bullet hit Brandon in a major artery in his abdomen and he lost consciousness almost immediately.

“Two things. One, the prop man or AD always looks down the barrel of the gun to see that it is free. (The prop man is obligated to show the director that the barrel of the gun is empty.) Two, the actor with the gun is asked to never point the gun directly at the other actor. The shot is always supposed to be “off angle” and the lens and composition make it look like the gun is aimed correctly. Like everyone whether these mistakes could have been made one after another is almost impossible to imagine. The chances of Brandon being struck and killed by this forgotten snail were so high that obviously speculation about a ‘curse’ began.”

It’s really hard to understand how all these missteps happened in succession that allowed that bullet to enter the gun and then was never removed.

A remake of The Raven is currently in development thanks to Lionsgate and many fans are not happy about it. Director Alex Proyas also criticized the remake and believes it shouldn’t be made because he wants it The Raven to “remain Brandon’s film”.