Well, you know what Serious Cat in a banner picture means, serious news. Less than a month after a stunt performer was killed during an explosion mishap on the set of the Expendables sequel in Bulgaria, a crewman has died while working on the set of GI Joe 2 in New Orleans. Serious set accidents also befell crew members on the sets of Hangover 2 and Transformers 3. Under the circumstances, I think it’s high time we consider a law against sequels.

Officials at Paramount Pictures confirm … the crew member was working on tearing down the set, when something went terribly wrong.
Sources connected to the production tell us … the man was working on a “condor” — a high-powered lift — when the machine tipped over and the man sustained fatal injuries.
Paramount released a statement saying, “Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the [crew member's] family at this time.”
The statement continues, “The safety of our cast and crew is our top priority and the studio is fully cooperating with all investigating agencies as they examine the circumstances surrounding this unusual accident.” [TMZ]

Well that’s pretty terrible, and obviously our thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family. I’d also like to take this time to request that if I happen to die falling from a Condor, tell my family that it was an actual condor. I would’ve wanted it that way.

A stunt performer has died on the set of The Expendables 2. The accident was reported by a newspaper in Bulgaria, where the film is shooting, and was confirmed by Nu Image, the production company. He has not yet been identified. Okay, I’ll admit, my headline wasn’t in the best taste. An innocent person dying is no laughing matter, unless it’s a clown.

Police reported that a stuntman working on the movie The Expendables 2 has been killed and another injured and taken to hospital after an accident on the Ognyanovo dam near Elin Pelin.
The accident took place when the two men, both reported in the Bulgarian media to be foreigners, were performing a stunt involving an explosion in a rubber boat on the dam.  The individuals concerned were members of the film’s second unit stunt team. The film’s main unit were reportedly shooting in Bansko, two-and-a-half hours away, at the time.
The injured stuntman is in stable condition, but is unconscious, according to hospital sources reported in the Bulgarian media which has also reported that he was in intensive care. [SofiaEcho]

UPDATE: From the Hollywood Reporter:Two stuntmen were in a rubber boat in the water when, around 7 pm local time, a planned bomb explosion went wrong. One of the stuntmen was killed on the spot. The other was taken to hospital in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, where he remains in serious condition.

So it appears Bulgaria might not be the bastion of strict job safety standards we all had assumed. Learn something new every day, I guess. It just goes to show, not even God wants an Expendables sequel. How many more people need to die before we learn that retro novelty films don’t need sequels? At the very least, everyone in the cast should have to get a tattoo of this guy’s name.

Additional Note: The best part of that banner image? Why the f*ck are they at the stock exchange?

HURRRRR

Aaron Sorkin is the talented writer behind The Social Network and Charlie Wilson’s War (who seems juuuust this side of douchey), so when he showed up to an Emmy party with a broken nose, people were confused. Seeing as how one thing smarmy Hollywood types tend to avoid is physical confrontation. But not to fear, it turns out he just broke it while writing. Wait, what?

“I wish I could say I was in a bar fight,” Sorkin told the Ministry on Friday at the Emmy Awards’ performance nominees’ reception in West Hollywood, “but I broke my nose writing.”
Sorkin said he was working on a block of dialogue in the mirror when he accidentally head-butted himself. [LATimes]

Gary Busey once headbutted a monitor showing Looney Tunes, but only because he said he was “trying to get into character.” Anyway, for an industry veteran like Sorkin, you’d think these types of method-acting accidents would be behind him by now. It reminds me of the time Meryl Streep over exerted herself trying to master a dialect and ended up tearing a hammy, but that was early in her career. Likewise, Nic Cage has lost countless days of shooting to “wig neck.” These types of injuries are Hollywood’s dirty little secret.

It’s been a dangerous year for stunt people.  Transformers 3 left an extra with permanent brain damage and sent a policeman to the hospital in two separate accidents.  And that’s to say nothing of the ongoing carnival of pain that is the Spider-Man Musical.  Now the curse has struck the set of The Hangover 2 in Thailand, leaving a stunt man in a medically-induced coma, and not the fun kind.

Australian stuntman Scott McLean is recovering in a Thai hospital after an accident on the set of “The Hangover Part II” left him in an induced coma.

Warner Bros. confirmed the tragic incident in a statement on Monday. “There was an accident involving a truck and a car on the second unit set of “The Hangover Part II” near Bangkok, Thailand.  The truck and car were both driven by stunt drivers. We are awaiting further details concerning his condition.”

The carefully planned and choreographed stunt went awry after an oncoming car skidded into a truck. Weather was believed to have played a factor in the accident, as recent rainfall left the roads slick.

Doctors decided to put McLean into a coma-like state after surgery in order to help him recover quicker from the serious injuries he sustained, although McLean is apparently aware that his friends and family are at his bedside, so his prognosis is positive. [TheWrap]

Jesus, you see how dangerous this stuff is?  That’s the main reason I never became a handsome, Australian stunt man.  Well, one of the top three reasons at least.

(An artist's rendition of the incident)

We’ve been Peter Panning people across the theater stage for like 200 years now, haven’t we?  I’m pretty sure they had that at the play where Abe Lincoln died.  How do you spend $65 million on a play about Spider-Man and still get that part so wrong?

An actor performing an aerial stunt fell about 30 feet, fire officials said.

Firefighters were called to the Foxwoods Theatre at about 10:45 p.m. Monday after the 31-year-old actor fell near the end of the latest preview performance. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital with minor injuries, police said. Police did not release the actor’s name, but a performer in the show identified him as Christopher Tierney.  A nurse said Tierney was in stable condition, but would not provide details.

Tierney is the show’s main aerialist and performs stunts for the roles of Spider-Man, and the villains Meeks and Kraven.

The cable to Tierney’s harness snapped during a scene in which Spider-Man rescues his love interest, Mary Jane, the performer said. It was unclear if Tierney was properly harnessed when the cable snapped. The performer said the show’s actors are responsible for hooking themselves up to harnesses used for aerial stunts.

Oh sure, the actors hooking up their own harnesses, that’s a good plan.  If a teamster’s truck breaks down on a Zac Efron movie, guess who they don’t call to fix it: Zac Efron.

(there’s more, including video):

Read the rest of this entry »