Jackass started as a fairly unassuming television series on MTV that was nothing more than watching young people doing dumb stuff. While you wouldn't think that would be a recipe for a breakout franchise, the show became a solid hit, went on for three seasons, and has since spawned three feature films. Now, 20 years after the series first launched, the Jackass crew is together again and filming just started on a fourth feature film. And stars Johnny Knoxville and Steve-o are apparently already in the hospital, and it's only day two of filming.
Fellow Jackass member Bam Margera posted a brief video to his personal website where he broke the news that while Jackass 4 is only on day two of production, filming has already stalled due to both Johnny Knoxville and Steve-o needing to be hospitalized due to injuries sustained during one of the film's stunts. According to the video, the two were apparently trying to jump onto a moving treadmill while carrying musical instruments, Margera says a tuba was involved. It's not entirely clear whether the two were jumping on the same treadmill, and thus were injured together in the same stunt gone wrong, or if the two were injured separately during the same stunt. Not that it really matters.
On the one hand, I'm not sure news like this is going to be particularly shocking to anybody. The whole concept behind Jackass involves the various players doing ridiculous things and that frequently means doing things that are ridiculously dangerous and can potentially result in injury. The fact that they might kill themselves is part of why they do it, and why others are interested in watching it. I don't understand either side of this equation myself, but nobody is forcing anybody, so I guess it's fine.
Having said that, sustaining such injury is certainly more likely now than it was back when these guys first started Jackass. Johnny Knoxville is 49-years-old and Steve-o is 46. When you get to that age your body simply doesn't work the way it did when you were in your late 20s. I mean, I guess that potentially makes Jackass 4 slightly more exciting since the odds of these guys killing themselves have only gone up.
The exact extent of the injuries isn't mentioned by Bam Margera in his video, one assumes things aren't too serious. If bones are actually broken we see a significant delay to the movie, or a drastic shift in whatever was planned for the movie. More than likely production will simply be delayed while some minor healing is done. Although, Johnny Knoxville had previously said the new film would include some "fresh blood" and so it's possible other parts of the movie could continue filming while these guys heal up.
