The set of the new Resident Evil movie has seemingly become an incredibly dangerous place to work. Only a couple months after a stuntwoman was in a terrible accident that left her in a coma, another crew member, who had nothing to do with stunts, died after sustaining an injury on the set. What’s worse, is that this accident happened nearly a month ago but the news is only now coming out.
Ricardo Cornelius was a crew member on the film’s shoot in South Africa when he was standing near a Humvee that was located on a rotating platform. Apparently, the Humvee was not properly secured and it slid off the platform. According to Deadline, when this happened it pinned Cornelius against a wall and crushed him. The crew member was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support, but he passed away a few hours later.
The curious thing is that this terrible accident apparently occurred on December 3rd, but has only come to light in the last day. There has been no public comment by the studio, director Paul W.S. Anderson, or anybody else involved in the production. At the very least you would expect a comment offering condolences to the man’s family. The complete silence is deafening. It’s understandable that from a business perspective nobody wants to make a big deal out of the tragedy, but by not saying anything at all it gives the impression that nobody cares.
It’s possible there was an intentional attempt to avoid even more bad publicity. This fatal tragedy comes on the heels of a near fatal one, where stuntwoman Olivia Jackson was in a motorcycle crash that left her in a coma. A camera on a mechanical arm failed to move out of the way, and Jackson crashed into it at hish speed. While she has since awoken from the coma, the accident resulted in her having an arm amputated and left her with severe facial injuries.
The film has reportedly completed its production, which at the very least means that there won’t be any additional reports like this one. The new movie is also titled The Final Chapter and the word is that the franchise will be living up to the title and wrapping up after this so whatever curse is following the movie will not continue onto another.
Our condolences go out to the wife of Ricardo Cornelius, Shafiefa, who had only been married to the crew member for a year. Movies are supposed to be escapes from reality, so it’s truly awful when horrible things like this occur while trying to create entertainment.
