The first teaser footage of Alec Baldwin’s troubled western film, Rust, has been released in the wake of the 2021 on-set shooting that left director of photography Halyna Hutchins dead.
The footage shows a gritty tale that features a young boy in 1880s Kansas who faces a life-defining trial with the aid of his grandfather, played by Baldwin.
“Recently orphaned Lucas McCalister (Patrick Scott McDermott) accidentally kills a rancher and is sentenced to hang,” the synopsis for the film reads. “In a twist of fate, his estranged grandfather, the notorious outlaw Harland Rust (Alec Baldwin), breaks him out of jail and takes him on the run toward Mexico. As they flee across the unforgiving wilderness, the fugitive pair must outrun the determined U.S. Marshal Wood Helm (Josh Hopkins) and a ruthless bounty hunter named “Preacher” (Travis Fimmel).”
The film, of course, has a very troubled history after Hutchins’s death and the subsequent raft of prosecutions, court actions, and lawsuits. The legal onslaught forced Baldwin to move his filming from New Mexico to Montana.
Baldwin found himself the target of a number of lawsuits for the shooting incident, not to mention criminal charges. Ultimately, the criminal charges were dropped, though that apparently opened the way from more civil lawsuits.
The judge threw the case out mid-trial after ruling that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense.
Recently Baldwin spoke of the tragedy and broke down in tears over the shooting during a segment of his series, The Baldwins.
“From the bottom of my soul, I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have you and these kids,” he told his wife as they discussed the tragic death of his crew member.
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