The producers of the film Rust had budgeted $7,913 to pay rookie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, compared to $650,000 for themselves and a $350,000 contingency fee in case anything went wrong, according to a preliminary budget.
The independent movie had a modest overall budget of just $7,279,305, according to a draft of the production budget dated September 8, which was revealed by the Hollywood Reporter.
Star and producer Alec Baldwin, who fired the accidental shot that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, derailing the production, was slated to earn $150,000 as the lead actor, and his production company, El Dorado, was taking a $100,000 fee.
‘I’m not sure why they needed six producers taking fees. They’d be falling all over each other if they’re really on set. But it’s not unheard of,’ a source with knowledge of similar productions told the outlet.
The producers of the film Rust had budgeted $7,913 to pay rookie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed (left), compared to $650,000 for themselves, including Alec Baldwin (right)
An aerial view of the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, where the movie was being filmed
It is a modest fee for an actor of Baldwin’s high profile, though it doesn’t reflect what he may have stood to earn on the backend. He had developed the script as a passion project, rather than a money gig.
The film’s other producers included Allen Cheney and Ryan Donnell Smith’s Thomasville Pictures planned to take a $150,000 fee, as did Nathan Klingher and Ryan Winterstern’s Short Porch Pictures,
The other producers were Matt DelPiano, whose fee was budgeted at $150,000, and Anjul Nijam, who stood to earn $100,000.
Klingher, Winterstern and Nijam were the producers who were on the set daily in a hands-on role, according to sources cited by the Hollywood Reporter.
A source close to the production told the outlet that the producers were deferring their fees following the fatal on-set accident.
Director Joel Souza, who was also injured by the gun Baldwin fired, was to earn $221,872 for his work on the film. First assistant director Dave Halls, who handed the gun to Baldwin according to sheriff’s affidavits, was to earn $52,830.
Hutchins, who was killed, was budgeted to earn $48,945.
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot with a prop gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin on the movie set in New Mexico on October 21
The budget also included $7,469 for an ‘armorer crew,’ in addition to Gutierrez-Reed’s fee, as well as $17,500 for the rental of weapons and $5,000 for rounds.
On Thursday, a lawyer for Gutierrez Reed – whose father, Thell Reed, is a veteran armorer – insisted that she had taken her role extremely seriously and had briefed all the actors, including Baldwin, that they should never point even unloaded guns at people.
‘Hannah was incredibly safety conscious and took her job very seriously from the moment she started on October 4,’ Jason Bowles, one of her attorneys, said in a statement shared with Fox News on Thursday.
‘She did firearms training for the actors as well as Mr. Baldwin, she fought for more training days and she regularly emphasized to never point a firearm at a person.’
Gutierrez Reed has hired Jason Bowles, a former federal prosecutor, to represent her
On Wednesday, Bowles, appearing on Good Morning America to defend his client, floated the wild theory that someone ‘intended to sabotage’ the production by sneaking live rounds into the package of dummy ammunition.
‘Never in a million years did Hannah think that live rounds could have been in the ‘dummy’ round box,’ he later said Thursday.
‘Who put those in there and why is the central question.’
No charges have been filed in the shooting, and investigators in New Mexico are continuing to piece together events.
Los Angeles personal injury attorney Miguel Custodio, who is not connected to the case, questioned the sabotage theory put forward by Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys.
‘Of course they’re going to say something like that, they want to shift public opinion and start building a cloud of doubt about the investigation and about who is at fault,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘It’s highly speculative and at the end of the day probably won’t be supported by evidence. More importantly, Ms. Gutierrez Reed’s inexperience and unproven track record will probably supersede any theories of sabotage,’ he added.
Prior to Rust, Gutierrez-Reed, 24, had served as head armorer on only one film, The Old Way starring Nicholas Cage, which was shot just months earlier.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed, 24, the armorer on the set of Rust, has hired a legal team and is insisting that she took her job incredibly seriously with safety as the priority
‘And what about crew accounts of the gun being used for target practice, and other live rounds found on the set? She’s the one in charge of the guns, and she should not have let that happen, or at the very least alerted higher-ups to a problem,’ Custodio added, referring to reports about on-set safety lapses.
‘An armorer’s job is to maintain control of every weapon used on the set, at all times. Reports so far show that wasn’t happening,’ he said.
Both Gorence and Bowles – a former federal prosecutor based in Albuquerque – have said that the focus on Gutierrez Reed is unfair.
On Wednesday, Bowles repeatedly claimed that the set had been deliberately sabotaged, speculating that it was connected to a walk-out by union members the day before the shooting amid anger over working conditions, including a long commute from the set to the hotel.
‘We know the live rounds shouldn’t have been in that box, but they were,’ Bowles told GMA.
‘So there can be very, very few explanations for why live rounds end up in a box of dummy prop ammunition on a movie set.
‘And one of them is that somebody wants that to go into a firearm and then wants there to be an incident on the set. There’s no other reason to mix a live round with the dummies. There’s just none.’
Gutierrez Reed is pictured at a a Mad Max Post-Apocalyptic Photo Meet in 2018
The 24-year-old armorer posted this picture on Twitter of her in costume
He continued pressing the argument later Wednesday on NBC’s Today.
Savannah Guthrie, host of Today, questioned why anyone would ‘have the motive and opportunity’ to plant live rounds on set, risking the lives of their colleagues.
Bowles replied: ‘I believe that somebody who would do that would want to prove a point, want to say that they’re disgruntled.
Baldwin is seen in costume, covered with fake blood, in an image posted to Instagram
‘And we know that people had already walked off the set the day before.
‘And the reason they were unhappy is they’re working 12- to 14-hour days. They were not given hotel rooms in and around the area. So they had to drive back and forth an hour to Albuquerque, and they’re unhappy.’
When Guthrie asked Bowles whether he was accusing the crew who quit, he said: ‘You can’t rule anybody out at this point.
‘We know there was a live round in a box of dummy rounds that shouldn’t have been there.
‘We have people who had left the set who had walked out because they were disgruntled.
‘We have a timeframe between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., approximately, that day in which the firearms, at times, were unattended. So there was opportunity to tamper with the scene. And yes, we’re looking at that possibility.’
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